IVORY  APES  AND 
PEACOCKS 


JAMES  HUNEKER 


,  LIBRARY 

university  of 

California 

Irvine 


PS 


XI 


BOOKS  BY  JAMES  HUNEKER 

PUBLISHED  BY  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


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IVORY  APES  AND   PEACOCKS 


DOSTOIEVSKY,   BY   VALLOTON 


IVOKI  APES  AND  PEACOCKS 


JOSEPH  CONRAD,   WALT  WHITMAN, 
JULES    LAFORGUE,    DOSTOIEVSKY    AND    TOLSTOY, 

SCHOENBERG,   WEDEKIND,   MOUSSORGSKY, 

CEZANNE,     VERMEER,     MATISSE,    VAN     GOGH,     GAUGUIN, 

ITALIAN  FUTURISTS,  VARIOUS  LATTER-DAY  POETS, 

PAINTERS,  COMPOSERS  AND  DRAMATISTS 


COPYRIGHT,  1915,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


PUBLISHED  SEPTEMBER,  1915 


JOHN  QUINN 


"Every  three  years  once  came  the  ships  of  Tarshish  bringing  gold 
and  silver,  ivory  and  apes,  and  peacocks." 

— //  Chronicles  22. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I.    THE  GENIUS  OF  JOSEPH  CONRAD  ....         i 
II.    A  VISIT  TO  WAIT  WHITMAN 22 

III.  THE  BUFFOON  OF  THE  NEW  ETERNITIES  :  JULES 

LAFORGUE 32 

IV.  DOSTOIEVSKY  AND  TOLSTOY,  AND  THE  YOUNGER 

CHOIR  OF  RUSSIAN  WRITERS     ....       52 

V.    I.  ARNOLD  SCHOENBERG 89 

I    II.  Music  OF  TO-DAY  AND  TO-MORROW  .     .     104 

VI.    FRANK  WEDEKIND 121 

VII.    THE  MAGIC  VERMEER 141 

VIII.    RICHARD  STRAUSS  AT  STUTTGART  ....     153 

IX.    MAX    LlEBERMANN    AND    SOME    PHASES   OF 

MODERN  GERMAN  ART 173 

X.    A  MUSICAL  PRIMITIVE:  MODESTE  MOUSSORG- 

SKY 190 

XI.  NEW  PLAYS  BY  HAUPTMANN,  SUDERMANN, 

AND   SCHNITZLER 203 

XII.    KUBIN,  MUNCH,  AND  GAUGUIN:  MASTERS  OF 

HALLUCINATION 222 

XIII.    THE     CULT    OF    THE     NUANCE:     LAFCADIO 

HEARN 240 

vii 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

XIV.    I.  THE  MELANCHOLY  OF  MASTERPIECES        .  249 

II.  THE  ITALIAN  FUTURIST  PAINTERS  .     .     .  262 

XV.    IN  THE  WORKSHOP  OF  ZOLA 275 

XVI.    A  STUDY  OF  DE  MAUPASSANT       .     .     .     .  288 

XVII.    Puvis  DE  CHAVANNES 301 

XVIII.    THREE  DISAGREEABLE  GIRLS 311 


vm 


IVORY  APES  AND   PEACOCKS 


I 

THE  GENIUS  OF  JOSEPH  CONRAD 


IN  these  piping  days  when  fiction  plays  the 
handmaid  or  prophet  to  various  propaganda; 
when  the  majority  of  writers  are  trying  to 
prove  something,  or  acting  as  venders  of  some 
new-fangled  social  nostrums;  when  the  insist 
ent  drums  of  the  Great  God  Reclame  are 
bruising  human  tympani,  the  figure  of  Joseph 
Conrad  stands  solitary  among  English  novel 
ists  as  the  very  ideal  of  a  pure  and  disinter 
ested  artist.  Amid  the  clamour  of  the  market 
place  a  book  of  his  is  a  sea-shell  which  pressed 
to  the  ear  echoes  the  far-away  murmur  of  the 
sea;  always  the  sea,  either  as  rigid  as  a  mirror 
under  hard,  blue  skies  or  shuddering  symphon- 
ically  up  some  exotic  beach.  Conrad  is  a  painter 
doubled  by  a  psychologist;  he  is  the  psycholo 
gist  of  the  sea  —  and  that  is  his  chief  claim  to 
originality,  his  Peak  of  Darien.  He  knows  and 
records  its  every  pulse-beat.  His  genius  has 
the  rich,  salty  tang  of  an  Elizabethan  adven 
turer  and  the  spaciousness  of  those  times.  Im- 


THE  GENIUS  OF  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

agine  a  Polish  sailor  who  read  Flaubert  and 
the  English  Bible,  who  bared  his  head  under 
equatorial  few  large  stars  and  related  his  doings 
in  rhythmic,  sonorous,  coloured  prose;  imagine 
a  man  from  a  landlocked  country  who  "mid 
way  in  his  mortal  life"  began  writing  for  the 
first  time  and  in  an  alien  tongue,  and,  added 
to  an  almost  abnormal  power  of  description, 
possessed  the  art  of  laying  bare  the  human 
soul,  not  after  the  meticulous  manner  of  the 
modern  Paul  Prys  of  psychology,  but  following 
the  larger  method  of  Flaubert,  who  believed 
that  actions  should  translate  character  —  im 
agine  these  paradoxes  and  you  have  partly 
imagined  Joseph  Conrad,  who  has  so  finely 
said  that  "imagination,  and  not  invention,  is 
the  supreme  master  of  art  as  of  life." 

He  has  taken  the  sea-romance  of  Smollett, 
Marryat,  Melville,  Dana,  Clark  Russell,  Ste 
venson,  Becke,  Kipling,  and  for  its  well-worn 
situations  has  substituted  not  only  many  novel 
nuances,  but  invaded  new  territory,  revealed 
obscure  atavisms  and  the  psychology  lurking 
behind  the  mask  of  the  savage,  the  transposi 
tions  of  dark  souls,  and  shown  us  a  world  of 
"kings,  demagogues,  priests,  charlatans,  dukes, 
giraffes,  cabinet  ministers,  bricklayers,  apostles, 
ants,  scientists,  Kaffirs,  soldiers,  sailors,  ele 
phants,  lawyers,  dandies,  microbes,  and  constel 
lations  of  a  universe  whose  amazing  spectacle 
is  a  moral  end  in  itself."  In  his  Reminiscences 
Mr.  Conrad  has  told  us,  with  the  surface 


THE  GENIUS  OF  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

frankness  of  a  Pole,  the  genesis  of  his  liter 
ary  debut  of  Almayer's  Folly,  his  first  novel, 
and  in  a  quite  casual  fashion  throws  fresh  light 
on  that  somewhat  enigmatic  character  —  re 
minding  me  in  the  juxtaposition  of  his  newer 
psychologic  procedure  and  the  simple  old  tale, 
of  Wagner's  Venusberg  ballet,  scored  after  he 
had  composed  Tristan  und  Isolde.  But,  like 
certain  other  great  Slavic  writers,  Conrad  has 
only  given  us  a  tantalising  peep  into  his  men 
tal  workshop.  We  rise  after  finishing  the  Rem 
iniscences  realising  that  we  have  read  once 
more  romance,  in  whose  half-lights  and  modest 
evasions  we  catch  fleeting  glimpses  of  reality. 
Reticence  is  a  distinctive  quality  of  this  au 
thor;  after  all,  isn't  truth  an  idea  that  trav 
erses  a  temperament? 

That  many  of  his  stories  were  in  the  best 
sense  "lived"  there  can  be  no  doubt  —  he  has 
at  odd  times  confessed  it,  confessions  painfully 
wrung  from  him,  as  he  is  no  friend  of  the  in 
terviewer.  The  white-hot  sharpness  of  the  im 
pressions  which  he  has  projected  upon  paper 
recalls  Taine's  dictum:  "les  sensations  sont  des 
hallucinations  vraies."  Veritable  hallucinations 
are  the  seascapes  and  landscapes  in  the  South 
Sea  stories,  veritable  hallucinations  are  the  quo 
tidian  gestures  and  speech  of  his  anarchists  and 
souls  sailing  on  the  winds  of  noble  and  sinister 
passions.  For  Conrad  is  on  one  side  an  im 
placable  realist.  .  .  .  Unforgetable  are  his  de 
lineations  of  sudden  little  rivers  never  charted 


THE  GENIUS  OF  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

and  their  shallow,  turbid  waters,  the  sombre 
flux  of  immemorial  forests  under  the  crescent 
cone  of  night,  and  undergrowth  overlapping 
the  banks,  the  tragic  chaos  of  rising  storms, 
hordes  of  clouds  sailing  low  on  the  horizon, 
the  silhouettes  of  lazy,  majestic  mountains,  the 
lugubrious  magic  of  the  tropical  night,  the  mys 
terious  drums  of  the  natives,  and  the  darkness 
that  one  can  feel,  taste,  smell.  What  a  gulf 
of  incertitudes  for  white  men  is  evoked  for  us 
in  vivid,  concrete  terms.  Unforgetable,  too, 
the  hallucinated  actions  of  the  student  Razu- 
mov  the  night  Victor  Haldin,  after  launching 
the  fatal  bomb,  seeks  his  room,  his  assistance, 
in  that  masterpiece,  Under  Western  Eyes.  But 
realist  as  Conrad  is,  he  is  also  a  poet  who 
knows,  as  he  says  himself,  that  "the  power 
of  sound  has  always  been  greater  than  the 
power  of  sense."  (Reason  is  a  poor  halter  with 
which  to  lead  mankind  to  drink  at  the  well 
of  truth.)  He  woos  the  ear  with  his  singing 
prose  as  he  ravishes  the  eye  with  his  pictures. 
In  his  little-known  study  of  Henry  James  he 
wrote:  "All  creative  art  is  magic,  is  evocation 
of  the  unseen  in  forms  persuasive,  enlighten 
ing,  familiar,  and  surprising,"  and  finally,  "  Fic 
tion  is  history,  human  history,  or  it  is  nothing." 
Often  a  writer  tells  us  more  of  himself  in  crit 
icising  a  fellow  craftsman  than  in  any  "ormal 
aesthetic  pronunciamiento.  We  soon  find  out 
the  likes  and  dislikes  of  Mr.  Conrad  in  this 
particular  essay,  and  also  what  might  be  de- 

4 


THE  GENIUS  OF  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

scribed  as  the  keelson  of  his  workaday  philos 
ophy:  "All  adventure,  all  love,  every  success, 
is  resumed  in  the  supreme  energy  of  renuncia 
tion.  It  is  the  utmost  limit  of  our  power." 
No  wonder  his  tutor,  half  in  anger,  half  in 
sorrow,  exclaimed:  "You  are  an  incorrigible, 
hopeless  Don  Quixote." 

I  suppose  a  long  list  might  be  made  of  for 
eigners  who  have  mastered  the  English  language 
and  written  it  with  ease  and  elegance,  yet  I  can 
not  recall  one  who  has  so  completely  absorbed 
native  idioms,  who  has  made  for  himself  an 
English  mind  (without  losing  his  profound  and 
supersubtle  Slavic  soul),  as  has  Joseph  Con 
rad.  He  is  unique  as  stylist.  He  first  read 
English  literature  in  Polish  translations,  then 
in  the  original;  he  read  not  only  the  Bible 
and  Shakespeare,  but  Dickens,  Fenimore  Cooper, 
and  Thackeray;  above  all,  Dickens.  He  fol 
lowed  no  regular  course,  just  as  he  belongs 
to  no  school  in  art,  except  the  school  of  hu 
manity;  for  him  there  are  no  types,  only  hu 
mans.  (He  detests  formulae  and  movements.) 
His  sensibility,  all  Slavic,  was  stimulated  by 
Dickens,  who  was  a  powerful  stimulant  of  the 
so-called  "Russian  pity,"  which  fairly  honey 
combs  the  works  of  Dostoievsky.  There  is  no 
mistaking  the  influence  of  the  English  Bible  on 
Conrad' i  prose  style.  He  is  saturated  with  its 
puissant,  elemental  rhythms,  and  his  prose  has 
its  surge  and  undertow.  That  is  why  his  is 
never  a  "painted  ship  on  a  painted  ocean"; 

5 


THE  GENIUS  OF  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

by  the  miracle  of  his  art  his  water  is  billowy 
and  undulating,  his  air  quivers  in  the  torrid 
sunshine,  and  across  his  skies  —  skies  broken 
into  new,  strange  patterns  —  the  cloud-masses 
either  float  or  else  drive  like  a  typhoon.  His 
rhythmic  sense  is  akin  to  Flaubert's,  of  whom 
Arthur  Symons  wrote:  "He  invents  the  rhythm 
of  every  sentence,  he  changes  his  cadence  with 
every  mood,  or  for  the  convenience  of  every 
fact;  ...  he  has  no  fixed  prose  tune."  Nor, 
by  the  same  token,  has  Conrad.  He  seldom 
indulges,  as  does  Theophile  Gautier,  in  the  static 
paragraph.  He  is  ever  in  modulation.  There 
is  ebb  and  flow  in  his  sentences.  A  typical 
paragraph  of  his  shows  what  might  be  called 
the  sonata  form:  an  allegro,  andante,  and 
presto.  For  example,  the  opening  pages  of 
Karain  (one  of  his  best  stories,  by  the  way) 
in  Tales  of  Unrest: 

"Sunshine  gleams  between  the  lines  of  those 
short  paragraphs  [he  is  writing  of  the  news 
paper  accounts  of  various  native  risings  in  the 
Eastern  Archipelago]  —  sunshine  and  the  glit 
ter  of  the  sea.  A  strange  name  wakes  up  mem 
ories;  the  printed  words  scent  the  smoky  at 
mosphere  of  to-day  faintly,  with  the  subtle 
and  penetrating  perfume  as  of  land-breezes 
breathing  through  the  starlight  of  bygone  nights; 
a  signal-fire  gleams  like  a  jewel  on  the  high 
brow  of  a  sombre  cliff;  great  trees,  the  advanced 
sentries  of  immense  forests,  stand  watchful  and 
still  over  sleeping  stretches  of  open  water;  a 
6 


THE  GENIUS  OF  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

line  of  white  surf  thunders  on  an  empty  beach, 
the  shallow  water  foams  on  the  reefs;  and 
green  islets  scattered  through  the  calm  of  noon 
day  lie  upon  the  level  of  a  polished  sea  like  a 
handful  of  emeralds  on  a  buckler  of  steel." 

There  is  no  mistaking  the  coda  of  this  para 
graph  —  selected  at  random  —  beginning  at 
"and";  it  suggests  the  author  of  Salammbo,  and 
it  also  contains  within  its  fluid  walls  evocations 
of  sound,  odour,  bulk,  tactile  values,  the  colour 
of  life,  the  wet  of  the  waves,  and  the  whisper 
of  the  wind.  Or,  as  a  contrast,  recall  the  rank 
ugliness  of  the  night  when  Razumov  visits  the 
hideous  tenement,  expecting  to  find  there  the 
driver  who  would  carry  to  freedom  the  political 
assassin,  Haldin.  Scattered  throughout  the 
books  are  descriptive  passages  with  few  paral 
lels  in  our  language.  Indeed,  Conrad  often 
abuses  his  gift,  forgetting  that  his  readers  do 
not  possess  his  tremendously  developed  faculty 
of  attention. 

II 

Invention  he  has  to  a  plentiful  degree,  not 
withstanding  his  giving  it  second  place  in  com 
parison  with  imagination.  His  novels  are  the 
novels  of  ideas  dear  to  Balzac,  though  tinged 
with  romance  —  a  Stendhal  of  the  sea.  Gus- 
tave  Kahn  called  him  un  puissant  reveur,  and 
might  have  added,  a  wonderful  spinner  of  yarns. 
Such  yarns  —  for  men  and  women  and  children ! 

7 


THE  GENIUS  OF  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

At  times  yarning  seemingly  for  the  sake  of 
yarning  —  true  art-for-art,  though  not  in  the 
"precious"  sense.  From  the  brilliant  melo- 
chromatic  glare  of  the  East  to  the  drab  of 
London's  mean  streets,  from  the  cool,  dark 
ened  interiors  of  Malayan  warehouses  to  the 
snow-covered  allees  of  the  Russian  capital,  or 
the  green  parks  on  the  Lake  of  Geneva,  he 
carries  us  on  his  magical  carpet,  and  the  key 
is  always  in  true  pitch.  He  never  saves  up 
for  another  book  as  Henry  James  once  said 
of  some  author,  and  for  him,  as  for  Mr.  James, 
every  good  story  is  "both  a  picture  and  an 
idea";  he  seeks  to  interpret  "the  uncomposed, 
unrounded  look  of  life  with  its  accidents,  its 
broken  rhythms."  He  gets  atmosphere  in 
a  phrase;  a  verbal  nuance  lifts  the  cover  of 
some  iniquitous  or  gentle  soul.  He  contrives 
the  illusion  of  time,  and  his  characters  are 
never  at  rest;  even  within  the  narrow  compass 
of  the  short  story  they  develop;  they  grow  in 
evil  or  wisdom,  are  always  transformed;  they 
think  in  "character,"  and  ideality  unites  his 
vision  with  that  of  his  humans.  Consider  the 
decomposition  of  the  moral  life  of  Lord  Jim 
and  its  slow  recrudescence;  there  is  a  pro 
longed  duel  between  the  will  and  the  intelli 
gence.  Here  is  the  tesselation  of  mean  and 
tragic  happenings  in  the  vast  mosaic  we  call 
Life.  And  the  force  of  fatuity  in  the  case  of 
Almayer  —  a  book  which  has  for  me  the  bloom 
of  youth.  Sheer  narrative  could  go  no  further 
8 


THE  GENIUS  OF  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

than  in  The  Nigger  of  the  Narcissus  (Children 
of  the  Sea),  nor  interior  analysis  in  The  Return. 
What  I  once  wrote  of  Henry  James  might 
be  said  of  Joseph  Conrad:  "He  is  exquisitely 
aware  of  the  presence  of  others."  And  this 
awareness  is  illustrated  in  Under  Western  Eyes 
and  Nostromo  —  the  latter  that  astonishing  re 
habilitation  of  the  humming  life  on  a  South 
American  seaboard.  For  Nostromo  nothing  is 
lost  save  honour;  he  goes  to  his  death  loving 
insensately;  for  Razumov  his  honour  endures 
till  the  pressure  put  upon  it  by  his  love  for 
Haldin's  sister  cracks  it,  and  cracks,  too,  his 
reason.  For  once  the  novelist  seems  cruel  to 
the  pathological  point  —  I  mean  in  the  punish 
ment  of  Razumov  by  the  hideous  spy.  I  hope 
this  does  not  betray  parvitude  of  view-point. 
I  am  not  thin-skinned,  and  Under  Western 
Eyes  is  my  favourite  novel,  but  the  closing  sec 
tion  is  lacerating  music  for  the  nerves.  And 
what  a  chapter !  —  that  thunder-storm  driving 
down  the  valley  of  the  Rhone,  the  haggard, 
haunted  face  of  the  Russian  student  forced,  de 
spite  his  convictions,  to  become  an  informer 
and  a  supposed  anarchist  (curious  students  will 
find  the  first  hint  of  the  leitmotiv  of  this  monu 
mental  book  in  An  Anarchist  —  A  Set  of  Six; 
as  Caspar  Ruiz  may  be  looked  on  as  a  pendant 
to  Nostromo).  Under  Western  Eyes  is  a  mas 
terpiece  of  irony,  observation,  and  pity.  I  once 
described  it  as  being  as  powerful  as  Dostoiev 
sky  and  as  well  written  as  Turgenieff.  The 


THE   GENIUS  OF  JOSEPH   CONRAD 

truth  is  that  it  is  Conrad  at  his  best,  although 
I  know  that  I  may  seem  to  slight  the  Eastern 
tales.  It  has  the  colour  and  shape  and  gait  of 
the  marvellous  stories  of  Dostoievsky  and  Turge- 
nieff  —  with  an  absolutely  original  motive,  and 
more  modern.  A  magical  canvas ! 

Its  type  of  narrative  is  in  the  later  style  of 
the  writer.  The  events  are  related  by  an  Eng 
lish  teacher  of  languages  in  Geneva,  based  on 
the  diary  of  Razumov.  It  is  a  favourite  de 
vice  of  Conrad's  which  might  be  described  as, 
structurally  progressing  from  the  homogeneous 
to  the  heterogeneous.  His  novel,  Chance,  is 
a  specific  instance  of  his  intricate  and  ellip 
tical  method.  Several  personages  of  the  story 
relate  in  almost  fugal  manner,  the  heroine  ap 
pearing  to  us  in  flashes  as  if  reflected  by  some 
revolving  mirror.  It  is  a  difficult  and  elusive 
method,  but  it  presents  us  with  many  facets 
of  character  and  is  swift  and  secular.  If  Flau 
bert  in  Sentimental  Education  originated  a  novel 
structure  in  fiction,  Conrad  may  claim  the 
same  honour;  his  edifice,  in  its  contrapuntal 
presentation  of  character  and  chapter  suspen 
sions,  is  new,  tantalisingly,  bewilderingly,  re 
freshingly,  new.  The  colour  is  toned  down,  is 
more  sober  than  the  prose  of  the  Eastern  sto 
ries.  Sometimes  he  employs  the  personal  pro 
noun,  and  with  what  piquancy  as  well  as  poign 
ancy  may  be  noted  in  the  volume  Youth. 
This  contains  three  tales,  the  first,  which  gives 
the  title-key,  has  been  called  the  finest  short 
10 


THE  GENIUS  OF  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

story  in  English,  although  it  is  difficult  to  dis 
criminate.  What  could  be  more  thrilling,  with 
a  well-nigh  supernatural  thrill  (and  the  col 
ouring  of  Baudelairian  cruelty  and  blood-lust) 
than  The  Heart  of  Darkness,  or  what  more 
pathetic  —  a  pathos  which  recalls  Balzac's  Pere 
Goriot  and  Turgenieff's  A  Lear  of  the  Steppe, 
withal  still  more  pity-breeding  —  than  The 
End  of  the  Tether  ?  This  volume  alone  should 
place  Conrad  among  the  immortals. 

That  he  must  have  had  a  "long  foreground" 
we  find  after  studying  the  man.  Sailing  a  ship 
is  no  sinecure,  and  for  Conrad  a  ship  is  some 
thing  with  human  attributes.  Like  a  woman, 
it  must  be  lived  with  to  be  understood,  and 
it  has  its  ways  and  whims  and  has  to  be  petted 
or  humoured,  as  in  The  Brute  —  that  monstrous 
personification  of  the  treacherous  sea's  victim. 
Like  all  true  artists,  Conrad  never  preaches. 
His  moral  is  in  suffusion,  and  who  runs  may 
read.  We  recognise  his  emotional  calibre, 
which  is  of  a  dramatic  intensity,  though  never 
over-emphasising  the  morbid.  Of  his  intellec 
tual  grasp  there  is  no  question.  He  possesses 
pathos,  passion,  sincerity,  and  humour.  Wide 
knowledge  of  mankind  and  nature  he  has,  and 
in  the  field  of  moral  power  we  need  but  ask 
if  he  is  a  Yes-Sayer  or  a  No-Sayer,  as  the 
Nietzschians  have  it.  He  says  Yes!  to  the 
universe  and  of  the  eternal  verities  he  is  cog 
nisant.  For  him  there  is  no  "other  side  of 
good  and  evil."  No  writers  of  fiction,  save  the 
II 


THE   GENIUS  OF  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

very  greatest,  Flaubert,  Tolstoy,  Dostoievsky, 
or  Turgenieff,  have  so  exposed  the  soul  of  man 
under  the  stress  of  sorrow,  passion,  anger,  or 
as  swimming,  a  midget,  in  the  immensities  of 
sky,  or  burrowing,  a  fugitive,  in  suffocating  vir 
gin  forests.  The  soul  and  the  sea  —  they  are 
the  beloved  provinces  of  this  sailor  and  psy- 
chologue.  But  he  also  recognises  the  relativity 
of  things.  The  ineluctable  vastness  and  sad 
ness  of  life  oppress  him.  In  Karain  we  read: 
"Nothing  could  happen  to  him  unless  what 
happens  to  all  —  failure  and  death."  His  he 
roes  are  failures,  as  are  heroes  in  all  great 
poetry  and  fiction,  and  then*  failure  is  recorded 
with  muffled  irony.  The  fundamental  pessi 
mism  of  the  Slavic  temperament  must  be  reck 
oned  with.  But  this  pessimism  is  implied,  and 
life  has  its  large  as  well  as  its  "little  ironies." 
In  Chance,  which  describes  the  hypertrophy  of 
a  dolorous  soul,  he  writes: 

"It  was  one  of  those  dewy,  starry  nights, 
oppressing  our  spirit,  crushing  our  pride,  by  the 
brilliant  evidence  of  the  awful  loneliness,  of 
the  hopeless,  obscure  magnificence  of  our  globe 
lost  in  the  splendid  revelation  of  a  glittering, 
soulless  universe.  .  .  .  Daylight  is  friendly  to 
man  toiling  under  a  sun  which  warms  his  heart; 
and  cloudy,  soft  nights  are  more  kindly  to  our 
littleness." 

To  match  that  one  must  go  to  Thomas  Hardy, 
to  the  eloquent  passage  describing  the  terrors  of 
infinite  space  in  Two  on  a  Tower.  However, 
12 


THE  GENIUS  OF  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

Conrad  is  not  often  given  to  such  Hamlet-like 
moods.  The  shock  and  recoil  of  circumstances, 
the  fatalities  of  chance,  and  the  vagaries  of 
human  conduct  intrigue  his  intention  more  than 
the  night  side  of  the  soul.  Yet,  how  well  he 
has  observed  the  paralysis  of  will  caused  by 
fear.  In  An  Outpost  of  Progress  is  the  follow 
ing:  "Fear  always  remains.  A  man  may  de 
stroy  everything  within  himself,  love  and  hate 
and  belief,  and  even  doubt;  but  as  he  clings 
to  life  he  cannot  destroy  fear:  the  fear,  subtle, 
indestructible,  and  terrible  that  pervades  his 
being,  that  lurks  in  his  heart;  that  watches  on 
his  lips  the  struggle  of  his  last  breath.  .  .  . 

HI 

It  has  been  said  that  women  do  not  read 
him,  but  according  to  my  limited  experience  I 
believe  the  contrary.  (Where,  indeed,  would 
any  novelist  be  if  it  were  not  for  women?)  He 
has  said  of  Woman:  "She  is  the  active  part 
ner  in  the  great  adventure  of  humanity  on 
earth  and  feels  an  interest  in  all  its  episodes." 
He  does  not  idealise  the  sex,  like  George  Mere 
dith,  nor  yet  does  he  describe  the  baseness  of 
the  Eternal  Simpleton,  as  do  so  many  French 
novelists.  He  is  not  always  complimentary: 
witness  the  portrait  of  Mrs.  Fyne  in  Chance, 
or  the  mosaic  of  anti-feminist  opinions  to  be 
found  in  that  story.  That  he  succeeded  better 
with  his  men  is  a  commonplace  of  all  mascu- 


THE  GENIUS  OF  JOSEPH   CONRAD 

line  writers,  not  that  women  always  succeed 
with  their  sex,  but  to  many  masters  of  imagi 
native  literature  woman  is  usually  a  poet's  evo 
cation,  not  the  creature  of  flesh  and  blood  and 
bones,  of  sense  and  sentiment,  that  she  is  in 
real  life.  Conrad  opens  no  new  windows  in 
her  soul,  but  he  has  painted  some  full-length 
portraits  and  made  many  lifelike  sketches,  which 
are  inevitable.  From  the  shining  presence  of 
his  mother,  the  assemblage  of  a  few  traits  in 
his  Reminiscences,  to  Flora  de  Barral  in  Chance, 
with  her  self-tortured  temperament,  you  ex 
perience  that "  emotion  of  recognition"  described 
by  Mr.  James.  You  know  they  live,  that  some 
of  them  go  on  marching  in  your  memory  after 
the  book  has  been  closed.  Their  actions  always 
end  by  resembling  their  ideas.  And  their  ideas 
are  variegated. 

In  Under  Western  Eyes  we  encounter  the 
lovely  Natalie  Haldin,  a  sister  in  spirit  to  Hel 
ena,  to  Lisa,  to  any  one  of  the  Turgenieff  hero 
ines.  Charm  is  hers,  and  a  valiant  spirit.  Her 
creator  has  not,  thus  far,  succeeded  in  better 
ing  her.  Only  once  does  he  sound  a  false  note. 
I  find  her  speech  a  trifle  rhetorical  after  she 
learns  the  facts  in  the  case  of  Razumov  (p.  354). 
Two  lines  are  superfluous  at  the  close  of  this 
heart-breaking  chapter,  and  in  all  the  length  of 
the  book  that  is  the  only  flaw  I  can  offer  to 
hungry  criticism.  The  revolutionary  group  at 
Geneva  —  the  mysterious  and  vile  Madame 
de  S ,  the  unhappy  slave,  Tekla,  the  much- 

14 


THE  GENIUS  OF  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

tried  Mrs.  Haldin,  and  the  very  vital  anar 
chist,  surely  a  portrait  sur  le  vif,  Sophia  Anto- 
novna,  are  testimonies  of  the  writer's  skill  and 
profound  divination  of  the  human  heart.  (He 
has  confessed  that  for  him  woman  is  "  a  human 
being,  very  much  like  myself.")  The  dialogue 
between  Razumov,  the  spiritual  bankrupt,  and 
Sophia  in  the  park  is  one  of  those  character- 
revealing  episodes  that  are  only  real  when  han 
dled  by  a  supreme  artist.  Its  involutions  and 
undulations,  its  very  recoil  on  itself  as  the  pair 
face  their  memories,  he  haunted,  she  suspicious, 
touch  the  springs  of  desperate  lives.  As  an 
etching  of  a  vicious  soul,  the  Eliza  of  Chance 
is  arresting.  We  do  not  learn  her  last  name, 
but  we  remember  her  brutal  attack  on  little 
Flora,  an  attack  that  warped  the  poor  child's 
nature.  Whether  the  end  of  the  book  is  jus 
tified  is  apart  from  my  present  purpose,  which 
is  chiefly  exposition,  though  I  feel  that  Captain 
Anthony  is  not  tenderly  treated.  But  "there 
is  a  Nemesis  which  overtakes  generosity,  too, 
like  all  the  other  imprudences  of  men  who  dare 
to  be  lawless  and  proud.  ..."  And  this  sailor, 
the  son  of  the  selfish  poet,  Carleon  Anthony, 
himself  sensitive,  but  unselfish,  paid  for  his 
considerate  treatment  of  his  wife  Flora.  Only 
Hardy  could  have  treated  the  sex  question  with 
the  same  tact  as  Conrad  (he  has  done  so  in 
Jude  the  Obscure). 

In  his  sea  tales  Conrad  is  a  belated  roman 
ticist;    and  in  Chance,  while  the  sea  is  never 

15 


THE  GENIUS  OF  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

far  off,  it  is  the  soul  of  an  unhappy  girl  that 
is  shown  us;  not  dissected  with  the  impersonal 
cruelty  of  surgeon  psychologists,  but  revealed 
by  a  sympathetic  interpreter  who  knows  the 
weakness  and  folly  and  tragedy  of  humanity. 

The  truth  is,  Conrad  is  always  an  analyst; 
that  sets  him  apart  from  other  writers  of  sea 
stories.  Chance  is  different  in  theme,  but  not 
as  different  in  treatment  as  in  construction. 
His  pattern  of  narration  has  always  been  of  an 
evasive  character;  here  the  method  is  carried 
to  the  pitch  of  polyphonic  intricacy.  The  rich 
ness  of  interest,  the  startling  variety,  and  the 
philosophic  largeness  of  view  —  the  tale  is  simple 
enough  otherwise  for  a  child's  enjoyment  —  are 
a  few  of  its  qualities.  Coventry  Patmore  is  said 
to  be  the  poet  alluded  to  as  Carleon  Anthony, 
and  there  are  distinct  judgments  on  feminism 
and  the  new  woman,  some  wholesome  truths 
uttered  at  a  time  when  man  has  seemingly 
shrivelled  up  in  the  glorified  feminine  vision  of 
mundane  things.  The  moral  is  to  be  found  on 
page  447.  "Of  all  the  forms  offered  to  us  by 
life  it  is  the  one  demanding  a  couple  to  realise  it 
fully  which  is  the  most  imperative.  Pairing  off 
is  the  fate  of  mankind.  And  if  two  beings  thrown 
together,  mutually  attracted,  resist  the  necessity, 
fail  in  understanding,  and  stop  voluntarily  short 
.  .  .  they  are  committing  a  sin  against  life." 

The  Duel  (published  in  America  under  the 
title  of  A  Point  of  Honor)  is  a  tour  de  force  in 
story- telling  that  would  have  made  envious  Bal- 
16 


THE  GENIUS  OF  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

zac.  Then  there  is  Winnie  Verloc  in  the  Secret 
Agent,  and  her  cockney  sentiment  and  rancours. 
She  is  remarkably  "realised,"  and  is  a  pitiful 
apparition  at  the  close.  The  detective  Verloc, 
her  husband,  wavers  as  a  portrait  between  real 
ity  and  melodrama.  The  minor  female  char 
acters,  her  mother  and  the  titled  lady  patron 
of  the  apostle  Michaelis,  are  no  mere  super 
numeraries. 

The  husband  and  wife  in  The  Return  are 
nameless  but  unforgetable.  It  is  a  profound 
parable,  this  tale.  The  man  discovered  in  his 
judgment  of  his  foolish  wife  that  "morality  is 
not  a  method  of  happiness."  The  image  in  the 
mirrors  in  this  tale  produces  a  ghastly  effect. 
I  enjoyed  the  amateur  anarchist,  the  English 
girl  playing  with  bombs  in  The  Informer;  she 
is  an  admirable  foil  for  the  brooding  bitterness 
of  the  ruined  Royalist's  daughter  in  that  stir 
ring  South  American  tale,  Caspar  Ruiz.  Con 
rad  knows  this  continent  of  half-baked  civili 
sations;  life  grows  there  like  rank  vegetations. 
Nostromo  is  the  most  elaborate  and  dramatic 
study  of  the  sort,  and  a  wildly  adventurous 
romance  into  the  bargain.  The  two  women, 
fascinating  Mrs.  Gould  and  the  proud,  beauti 
ful  Antonia  Avellanos,  are  finely  contrasted. 
And  what  a  mob  of  cutthroats,  politicians,  and 
visionaries !  "  In  real  revolutions  the  best  char 
acters  do  not  come  to  the  front,"  which  state 
ment  holds  as  good  in  Paris  as  in  Petrograd, 
in  New  York,  or  in  Mexico.  The  Nigger  of 

17 


THE  GENIUS  OF  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

the  Narcissus  and  Nostromo  give  us  the  "  emo 
tion  of  multitude." 

A  genuinely  humorous  woman  is  the  German 
skipper's  wife  in  Falk,  and  the  niece,  the  hero 
ine  who  turns  the  head  of  the  former  cannibal 
of  Falk  —  this  an  echo,  doubtless,  from  the 
anecdote  of  the  dog-eating  granduncle  B — — 
of  the  Reminiscences  —  is  heroic  in  her  way. 
Funniest  of  all  is  the  captain  himself.  Falk  is 
almost  a  tragic  figure.  Amy  Foster  —  in  the 
same  volume  —  is  pathetic,  and  Bessie  Carvil, 
of  To-morrow,  might  have  been  signed  by 
Hardy.  In  Youth  the  old  sea-dog's  motherly 
wife  is  the  only  woman.  As  for  the  impure 
witch  in  The  Heart  of  Darkness,  I  can  only 
say  that  she  creates  a  new  shudder.  How  she 
appeals  to  the  imagination!  The  soft-spoken 
lady,  bereft  of  her  hero  in  this  narrative,  who 
lives  in  Brussels,  is  a  specimen  of  Conrad's 
ability  to  make  reverberate  in  our  memory  an 
enchanting  personality,  and  with  a  few  strokes 
of  the  brush.  We  cannot  admire  the  daughter 
of  poor  old  Captain  Whalley  in  The  End  of 
Tether,  but  she  is  the  propulsive  force  of  his 
actions  and  final  tragedy.  For  her  we  have 
"that  form  of  contempt  which  is  called  pity." 
That  particular  story  will  rank  with  the  best  in 
the  world's  literature.  Nina  Almayer  shows 
the  atavistic  "pull"  of  the  soil  and  opposes 
finesse  to  force,  while  Alice  Jacobus  in  'Twixt 
Land  and  Sea  (A  Smile  of  Fortune)  is  half 
way  on  the  road  back  to  barbarism.  But  Nina 
18 


THE  GENIUS  OF  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

will  be  happy  with  her  chief.  In  depicting  the 
slow  decadence  of  character  in  mixed  races  and 
the  nai've  stammerings  at  the  birth  of  their  souls, 
Conrad  is  unapproachable. 

In  the  selection  of  his  titles  he  is  always 
happy;  how  happy,  may  be  noted  in  his  new 
book,  Victory.  It  is  not  a  war  book,  though 
it  depicts  in  his  most  dramatic  manner  the 
warring  of  human  instincts.  It  was  planned 
several  years  ago,  but  not  finished  until  the 
writer's  enforced  stay  in  his  unhappy  native 
land,  Poland.  Like  Goethe  or  Stendhal,  Con 
rad  can  write  in  the  midst  of  war's  alarums 
about  the  hair's-breadth  'scapes  of  his  characters. 
But,  then,  the  Polish  is  the  most  remarkable 
race  in  Europe;  from  leading  forlorn  hopes  to 
playing  Chopin  the  Poles  are  unequalled.  Mr. 
Conrad  has  returned  to  his  old  habitat  in  fic 
tion.  An  ingenious  map  shows  the  reader  pre 
cisely  where  his  tragic  tale  is  enacted.  It  may 
not  be  his  most  artistic,  but  it  is  an  engrossing 
story.  Compared  with  Chance,  it  seems  a  cast- 
back  to  primitive  souls;  but  as  no  man  after 
writing,  such  an  extraordinary  book  as  Chance 
will  ever  escape  its  influence  (after  his  Golden 
Bowl,  Mr.  James  was  quite  another  James),  so 
Joseph  Conrad's  firmer  grasp  on  the  burin  of 
psychology  shows  very  plainly  in  Victory;  that 
is,  he  deals  with  elemental  causes,  but  the  ef 
fects  are  given  in  a  subtle  series  of  reactions. 
He  never  drew  a  girl  but  once  like  Flora  de 
Barral;  and,  till  now,  never  a  man  like  the 

19 


THE  GENIUS  OF  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

Swede,  Axel  Heyst,  who  has  been  called,  most 
appropriately,  "a  South  Sea  Hamlet."  He  has 
a  Hamletic  soul,  this  attractive  young  man, 
born  with  a  metaphysical  caul,  which  eventually 
strangles  him.  No  one  but  Conrad  would  dare 
the  mingling  of  such  two  dissociated  genres  as  the 
romantic  and  the  analytic,  and  if,  here  and 
there,  the  bleak  rites  of  the  one,  and  the  lush 
sentiment  of  the  other,  fail  to  modulate,  it  is 
because  the  artistic  undertaking  is  a  well-nigh 
impossible  one.  Briefly,  Victory  relates  the  ad 
ventures  of  a  gentleman  and  scholar  in  the 
Antipodes.  He  meets  a  girl,  a  fiddler  in  a 
"Ladies'  Orchestra,"  falls  in  love,  as  do  men 
of  lofty  ideals  and  no  sense  of  the  practical, 
goes  off  with  her  to  a  lonely  island,  there  to 
fight  for  her  possession  and  his  own  life.  The 
stage-setting  is  magnificent;  even  a  volcano 
lights  the  scene.  But  the  clear,  hard-blue  sky 
is  quite  o'erspread  by  the  black  bat  Melan 
cholia,  and  the  silence  is  indeed  "dazzling." 
The  villains  are  melodramatic  enough  in  their 
behaviour,  but,  as  portraits,  they  are  artfully 
different  from  the  conventional  bad  men  of  fic 
tion.  The  thin  chap,  Mr.  Jones,  is  truly  sinis 
ter,  and  there  is  a  horrid  implication  in  his 
woman-hating,  which  vaguely  peeps  out  in  the 
bloody  finale.  The  hairy  servant  might  be  a 
graduate  from  The  Island  of  Doctor  Moreau  of 
Mr.  Wells  —  one  of  the  beast  folk;  while  the 
murderous  henchman,  Ricardo,  is  unpleasantly 
put  before  us.  I  like  the  girl;  it  would  have 
20 


THE  GENIUS  OF  JOSEPH  CONRAD 

been  so  easy  to  spoil  her  with  moralising;  but 
the  Baron  is  the  magnet,  and,  as  a  coun 
terfoil,  the  diabolical  German  hotel  keeper. 
There  is  too  much  arbitrary  handling  at  the 
close  for  my  taste.  Only  in  the  opening  chap 
ters  of  Victory  does  Mr.  Conrad  pursue  his 
oblique  method  of  taletelling;  the  pomp  and 
circumstance  of  a  lordly  narrative  style  roll  to 
a  triumphant  conclusion.  This  Polish  writer  eas 
ily  heads  the  present  school  of  English  fiction. 

His  most  buoyant  and  attractive  girl  is  Freya 
Nelson  (or  Nielsen)  in  the  volume  alluded  to; 
she,  however,  is  pure  Caucasian,  and  perhaps 
more  American  than  European.  Her  beauty 
caresses  the  eye.  The  story  is  a  good  one, 
though  it  ends  unhappily  —  another  cause  for 
complaint  on  the  part  of  the  sentimentalists 
who  prefer  molasses  to  meat.  But  this  is  a 
tale  which  is  also  literature.  Conrad  will  never 
be  coerced  into  offering  his  readers  sugar-coated 
tittle-tattle.  And  at  a  period  when  the  distaff 
of  fiction  is  too  often  in  the  hands  of  men  the 
voice  of  the  romantic  realist  and  poetic  ironist, 
Joseph  Conrad,  sounds  a  dynamic  masculine 
bass  amid  the  shriller  choir.  He  is  an  aboriginal 
force.  Let  us  close  with  the  hearty  affirmation 
of  Walt  Whitman:  "  Camerado !  this  is  no  book, 
who  touches  this,  touches  a  man." 


21 


II 

A  VISIT  TO  WALT  WHITMAN 

MY  edition  of  Walt  Whitman's  Leaves  of 
Grass  is  dated  1867,  the  third,  if  I  am  not 
mistaken,  the  first  appearing  in  1855.  Inside 
is  pasted  a  card  upon  which  is  written  in  large, 
clumsy  letters:  "Walt  Whitman,  Camden,  New 
Jersey,  July,  1877."  I  value  this  autograph, 
because  Walt  gave  it  to  me;  rather  I  paid  him 
for  it,  the  proceeds,  two  dollars  (I  think  that 
was  the  amount),  going  to  some  asylum  in 
Camden.  In  addition,  the  "good  grey  poet" 
was  kind  enough  to  add  a  woodcut  of  himself 
as  he  appeared  in  the  1855  volume,  "hanker 
ing,  gross,  mystical,  nude,"  and  another  of  his 
old  mother,  with  her  shrewd,  kindly  face.  Walt 
is  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  a  hand  on  his  hip,  the 
other  in  his  pocket,  his  neck  bare,  the  pose 
that  of  a  nonchalant  workman  —  though  in  ac 
tual  practice  he  was  always  opposed  to  work 
of  any  sort;  on  his  head  is  a  slouch-hat,  and 
you  recall  his  line:  "I  wear  my  hat  as  I  please, 
indoors  or  out."  The  picture  is  characteristic, 
even  to  the  sensual  mouth  and  Bowery-boy 
pose.  You  almost  hear  him  say:  "I  find  no 

22 


A  VISIT  TO  WALT  WHITMAN 

sweeter  fat  than  sticks  to  my  own  bones." 
Altogether  a  different  man  from  the  later  bard, 
the  heroic  apparition  of  Broadway,  Pennsyl 
vania  Avenue,  and  Chestnut  Street.  I  had  con 
valesced  from  a  severe  attack  of  Edgar  Allan 
Poe  only  to  fall  desperately  ill  with  Whitmania. 
Youth  is  ever  in  revolt,  age  alone  brings  resig 
nation.  My  favourite  reading  was  Shelley,  my 
composer  among  composers,  Wagner.  Chopin 
came  later.  This  was  in  1876,  when  the  Bay- 
reuth  apotheosis  made  Wagner's  name  familiar 
to  us,  especially  in  Philadelphia,  where  his 
empty,  sonorous  Centennial  March  was  first 
played  by  Theodore  Thomas  at  the  Exposition. 
The  reading  of  a  magazine  article  by  Moncure 
D.  Conway  caused  me  to  buy  a  copy,  at  an 
extravagant  price  for  my  purse,  of  The  Leaves 
of  Grass,  and  so  uncritical  was  I  that  I  wrote 
a  parallel  between  Wagner  and  Whitman;  be 
tween  the  most  consciously  artistic  of  men  and 
the  wildest  among  improvisators.  But  then  it 
seemed  to  me  that  both  had  thrown  off  the 
"shackles  of  convention."  (What  prison-like 
similes  we  are  given  to  in  the  heady,  generous 
impulses  of  green  adolescence.)  I  was  a  boy, 
and  seeing  Walt  on  Market  Street,  as  he  came 
from  the  Camden  Ferry,  I  resolved  to  visit 
him.  It  was  some  time  after  the  Fourth  of 
July,  1877,  and  I  soon  found  his  little  house 
on  Mickle  Street.  A  policeman  at  the  ferry- 
house  directed  me.  I  confess  I  was  scared  after 
I  had  given  the  bell  one  of  those  pulls  that 

23 


A  VISIT  TO  WALT  WHITMAN 

we  tremblingly  essay  at  a  dentist's  door.  To 
my  amazement  the  old  man  soon  stood  before 
me,  and  cordially  bade  me  enter. 

"Walt,"  I  said,  for  I  had  heard  that  he  dis 
liked  a  more  ceremonious  prefix,  "  I've  come  to 
tell  you  how  much  the  Leaves  have  meant  to 
me."  "Ah!"  he  simply  replied,  and  asked  me 
to  take  a  chair.  To  this  hour  I  can  see  the 
humble  room,  but  when  I  try  to  recall  our  con 
versation  I  fail.  That  it  was  on  general  liter 
ary  subjects  I  know,  but  the  main  theme  was 
myself.  In  five  minutes  Walt  had  pumped  me 
dry.  He  did  it  in  his  quiet,  sympathetic  way, 
and,  with  the  egoism  of  my  age,  I  was  not 
averse  from  relating  to  him  the  adventures  of 
my  soul.  That  Walt  was  a  fluent  talker  one 
need  but  read  his  memoirs  by  Horace  Traubel. 
Witness  his  tart  allusion  to  Swinburne's  criti 
cism  of  himself:  "Isn't  he  the  damnedest 
simulacrum?"  But  he  was  a  sphinx  the  first 
time  I  met  him.  I  do  recall  that  he  said  Poe 
wrote  too  much  in  a  dark  cellar,  and  that  mu 
sic  was  his  chief  recreation  —  of  which  art  he 
knew  nothing;  it  served  him  as  a  sound 
ing  background  for  his  pencilled  improvisations. 
I  begged  for  an  autograph.  He  told  me  of  his 
interest  in  a  certain  asylum  or  hospital,  whose 
name  has  gone  clean  out  of  my  mind,  and  I 
paid  my  few  dollars  for  the  treasured  signature. 
It  is  now  one  of  my  literary  treasures. 

If  I  forget  the  tenor  of  our  discourse  I  have 
not  forgotten  the  immense  impression  made  upon 
24 


A  VISIT  TO  WALT  WHITMAN 

me  by  the  man.  As  vain  as  a  peacock,  Walt 
looked  [like  a  Greek  rhapsodist.  Tall,  impos 
ing  in  bulk,  his  regular  features,  mild,  light-blue 
or  grey  eyes,  clear  ruddy  skin,  plentiful  white 
hair  and  beard,  evoked  an  image  of  the  mag 
nificently  fierce  old  men  he  chants  in  his  book. 
But  he  wasn't  fierce,  his  voice  was  a  tenor  of 
agreeable  timbre,  and  he  was  gentle,  even  to 
womanliness.  Indeed,  he  was  like  a  receptive, 
lovable  old  woman,  the  kind  he  celebrates  so 
often.  He  never  smoked,  his  only  drink  was 
water.  I  doubt  if  he  ever  drank  spirits.  His 
old  friends  say  "No,"  although  he  is  a  terrible 
rake  in  print.  Without  suggesting  effeminacy, 
he  gave  me  the  impression  of  a  feminine  soul 
in  a  masculine  envelope.  When  President  Lin 
coln  first  saw  him  he  said:  "Well,  he  looks 
like  a  man!"  Perhaps  Lincoln  knew,  for  his 
remark  has  other  connotations  than  the  speech 
of  Napoleon  when  he  met  Goethe:  "Voila  un 
homme!"  Hasn't  Whitman  asked  in  Calamus, 
the  most  revealing  section  of  Leaves:  "Do  you 
suppose  yourself  advancing  on  real  ground  to 
ward  a  real  heroic  man  ?  "  He  also  wrote  of  Cala 
mus:  "Here  the  frailest  leaves  of  me.  .  .  .  Here 
I  shade  down  and  hide  my  thoughts.  I  do  not 
express  them.  And  yet  they  expose  me  more 
than  all  my  other  poems."  Mr.  Harlan,  Sec 
retary  of  the  Interior,  when  he  dismissed  Walt 
from  his  department  because  of  Leaves,  did  not 
know  about  the  Calamus  section  —  I  believe 
they  were  not  incorporated  till  later  —  but 

25 


A  VISIT  TO  WALT  WHITMAN 

Washington  was  acquainted  with  Walt  and  his 
idiosyncrasies,  and,  despite  W.  D.  Connor's 
spirited  vindication,  certain  rumours  would  not 
be  stifled.  Walt  was  thirty-six  when  Leaves 
appeared;  forty-one  when  Calamus  was  written. 
I  left  the  old  man  after  a  hearty  hand-shake, 
a  So  long !  just  as  in  his  book,  and  returned  to 
Philadelphia.  Full  of  the  day,  I  told  my  po 
liceman  at  the  ferry  that  I  had  seen  Walt. 
"That  old  gas-bag  comes  here  every  afternoon. 
He  gets  free  rides  across  the  Delaware,"  and  I 
rejoiced  to  think  that  a  soulless  corporation  had 
some  appreciation  of  a  great  poet,  though  the  ir 
reverence  of  this  "powerful  uneducated  person" 
shocked  me.  When  I  reached  home  I  also  told 
my  mother  of  my  visit.  She  was  plainly  dis 
turbed.  She  said  that  the  writings  of  the  man 
were  immoral,  but  she  was  pleased  at  my  report 
of  Walt's  sanity,  sweetness,  mellow  optimism, 
and  his  magnetism,  like  some  natural  force.  I 
forgot,  in  my  enthusiasm,  that  it  was  Walt 
who  listened,  I  who  gabbled.  My  father,  who 
had  never  read  Leaves,  had  sterner  criticism  to 
offer:  "If  I  ever  hear  of  you  going  to  see  that 
fellow  you'll  be  sorry!"  This  coming  from 
the  most  amiable  of  parents,  surprised  me. 
Later  I  discovered  the  root  of  his  objection, 
for,  to  be  quite  frank,  Walt  did  not  bear  a 
good  reputation  in  Philadelphia,  and  I  have 
heard  him  spoken  of  so  contemptuously  that 
it  would  bring  a  blush  to  the  shining  brow 
of  a  Whitmaniac.  Yet  dogs  followed  him  and 
26 


A  VISIT  TO  WALT  WHITMAN 

children  loved  him.  I  saw  Walt  acciden 
tally  at  intervals,  though  never  again  in  Cam- 
den.  I  met  him  on  the  streets,  and  severa.1 
times  took  him  from  the  Carl  Gaertner  String 
Quartet  Concerts  in  the  foyer  of  the  Broad 
Street  Academy  of  Music  to  the  Market  Street 
cars.  He  lumbered  majestically,  his  hairy 
breast  exposed,  but  was  a  feeble  old  man,  older 
than  his  years;  paralysis  had  maimed  him.  He 
is  said  to  have  incurred  it  from  his  unselfish 
labours  as  nurse  in  the  camp  hospitals  at  Wash 
ington  during  the  Civil  War;  however,  it  was 
in  his  family  on  the  paternal  side,  and  at  thirty 
he  was  quite  grey.  The  truth  is,  Walt  was  not 
the  healthy  hero  he  celebrates  in  his  book. 
That  he  never  dissipated  we  know;  but  his 
husky  masculinity,  his  posing  as  the  Great  God 
Priapus  in  the  garb  of  a  Bowery  boy  is  dis 
counted  by  the  facts.  Parsiphallic,  he  was,  but 
not  of  Pan's  breed.  In  the  Children  of  Adam, 
the  part  most  unfavourably  criticised  of  Leaves, 
he  is  the  Great  Bridegroom,  and  in  no  litera 
ture,  ancient  or  modern,  have  been  the  "mys 
teries"  of  the  temple  of  love  so  brutally  ex 
posed.  With  all  his  genius  in  naming  certain 
unmentionable  matters,  I  don't  believe  in  the 
virility  of  these  pieces,  scintillating  with  sexual 
images.  They  leave  one  cold  despite  their  erotic 
vehemence;  the  abuse  of  the  vocative  is  not 
persuasive,  their  raptures  are  largely  rhetorical. 
This  exaltation,  this  ecstasy,  seen  at  its  best  in 
William  Blake,  is  sexual  ecstasy,  but  only  when 
27 


A  VISIT  TO  WALT  WHITMAN 

the  mood  is  married  to  the  mot  lumiere  is  there 
authentic  conflagration.  Then  his  "barbaric 
yawp  is  heard  across  the  roofs  of  the  world"; 
but  in  the  underhumming  harmonics  of  Cala 
mus,  where  Walt  really  loafs  and  invites  his 
soul,  we  get  the  real  man,  not  the  inflated  hum- 
buggery  of  These  States,  Camerados,  or  My 
Message,  which  fills  Leaves  with  their  patriotic 
frounces.  His  philosophy  is  fudge.  It  was  an 
artistic  misfortune  for  Walt  that  he  had  a 
"mission,"  it  is  a  worse  one  that  his  disciples 
endeavour  to  ape  him.  He  was  an  unintellectual 
man  who  wrote  conventionally  when  he  was 
plain  Walter  Whitman,  living  in  Brooklyn.  But 
he  imitated  Ossian  and  Blake,  and  their  singing 
robes  ill-befitted  his  burly  frame.  If,  in  Poe, 
there  is  much  "rant  and  rococo,"  Whitman  is 
mostly  yawping  and  yodling.  He  is  destitute 
of  humour,  like  the  majority  of  "prophets"  and 
uplifters,  else  he  might  have  realised  that  a 
Democracy  based  on  the  "manly  love  of  com 
rades"  is  an  absurdity.  Not  alone  in  Calamus, 
but  scattered  throughout  Leaves,  there  are  pas 
sages  that  fully  warrant  unprejudiced  psychi 
atrists  in  styling  this  book  the  bible  of  the 
third  sex. 

But  there  is  rude  red  music  in  the  versicles  of 
Leaves.  They  stimulate,  and,  for  some  young 
hearts,  they  are  as  a  call  to  battle.  The  book 
is  a  capital  hunting-ground  for  quotations.  Such 
massive  head-lines  —  that  soon  sink  into  platitu 
dinous  prose;  such  robust  swinging  rhythms, 
28 


A  VISIT  TO  WALT  WHITMAN 

Emerson  told  Walt  that  he  must  have  had  a 
"long  foreground."  It  is  true.  Notwithstand 
ing  his  catalogues  of  foreign  countries,  he  was 
hardly  a  cosmopolitan  Whitman's  so-called 
"mysticism"  is  a  muddled  echo  of  New  England 
Transcendentalism;  itself  a  pale  dilution  of  an 
outworn  German  idealism  —  what  Coleridge 
called  "the  holy  jungle  of  Transcendental  meta 
physics."  His  concrete  imagination  automat 
ically  rejected  metaphysics.  His  chief  asset  is 
an  extraordinary  sensitiveness  to  the  sense  of 
touch;  it  is  his  distinguishing  passion,  and  tac 
tile  images  flood  his  work;  this,  and  an  eye  that 
records  appearances,  the  surface  of  things,  and 
registers  in  phrases  of  splendour  the  picturesque, 
yet  seldom  fuses  matter  and  manner  into  a 
poetical  synthesis.  The  community  of  inter 
est  between  his  ideas  and  images  is  rather  affili 
ated  than  cognate.  He  has  a  tremendous,  though 
ill-assorted  vocabulary.  His  prose  is  jolting, 
rambling,  tumid,  invertebrate.  An  "arrant  art 
ist,"  as  Mr.  Brownell  calls  him,  he  lacks  formal 
sense  and  the  diffuseness  and  vagueness  of  his 
supreme  effort  —  the  Lincoln  burial  hymn  — 
serves  as  a  nebulous  buffer  between  sheer  over 
praise  and  serious  criticism.  He  contrives  at 
mosphere  with  facility,  and  can  achieve  magical 
pictures  of  the  sea  and  the  "mad  naked  sum 
mer  night."  His  early  poem,  Walt  Whitman,  is 
for  me  his  most  spontaneous  offering.  He  has 
at  times  the  primal  gift  of  the  poet  —  ecstasy; 
but  to  attain  it  he  often  wades  through  shallow, 
29 


A  VISIT  TO  WALT  WHITMAN 

ill-smelling  sewers,  scales  arid  hills,  traverses 
dull  drab  levels  where  the  slag  covers  rich  ore, 
or  plunges  into  subterrene  pools  of  nocturnal 
abominations  —  veritable  regions  of  the  "mother 
of  dead  dogs."  Probably  the  sexlessness  of  Em 
erson's,  Poe's,  and  Hawthorne's  writings  sent 
Whitman  to  an  orgiastic  extreme,  and  the  mor 
bid,  nasty-nice  puritanism  that  then  tainted 
English  and  American  letters  received  its  first 
challenge  to  come  out  into  the  open  and  face 
natural  facts.  Despite  his  fearlessness,  one  must 
subscribe  to  Edmund  Clarence  Stedman's  epi 
gram:  "There  are  other  lights  in  which  a  dear 
one  may  be  regarded  than  as  the  future  mother 
of  men."  Walt  let  in  a  lot  of  fresh  air  on  the 
stuffy  sex  question  of  his  day,  but,  in  demanding 
equal  sexual  rights  for  women,  he  meant  it  in 
the  reverse  sense  as  propounded  by  our  old 
grannies'  purity  leagues.  Continence  is  not  the 
sole  virtue  or  charm  in  womanhood;  nor,  by 
the  same  token,  is  unchastity  a  brevet  of  fem 
inine  originality.  But  women,  as  a  rule,  have 
not  rallied  to  his  doctrines,  instinctively  feeling 
that  he  is  indifferent  to  them,  notwithstanding 
the  heated  homage  he  pays  to  their  physical 
attractions.  Good  old  Walt  sang  of  his  came- 
rados,  capons,  Americanos,  deck-hands,  stage 
coach-drivers,  machinists,  brakemen,  firemen, 
sailors,  butchers,  bakers,  and  candlestick  makers, 
and  he  associated  with  them;  but  they  never 
read  him  or  understood  him.  They  prefer  Long 
fellow.  It  is  the  cultured  class  he  so  despises 

30 


A  VISIT  TO  WALT  WHITMAN 

that  discovered,  lauded  him,  believing  that  he 
makes  vocal  the  underground  world;  above  all, 
believing  that  he  truly  represents  America  and 
the  dwellers  thereof  —  which  he  decidedly  does 
not.  We  are,  if  you  will,  a  commonplace  people, 
but  normal,  and  not  enamoured  of  "athletic 
love  of  comrades."  I  remember  a  dinner  given 
by  the  Whitman  Society  about  twenty  years 
ago,  at  the  St.  Denis  Hotel,  which  was  both 
grotesque  and  pitiable.  The  guest  of  honour 
was  "Pete"  Doyle,  the  former  car-conductor 
and  "young  rebel  friend  of  Walt's,"  then  a 
middle-aged  person.  John  Swinton,  who  pre 
sided,  described  Whitman  as  a  troglodyte,  but 
a  cave-dweller  he  never  was;  rather  the  avatar 
of  the  hobo.  As  John  Jay  Chapman  wittily 
wrote:  "He  patiently  lived  on  cold  pie,  and 
tramped  the  earth  in  triumph."  Instead  of 
essaying  the  varied,  expressive,  harmonious 
music  of  blank  verse,  he  chose  the  easier,  more 
clamorous,  and  disorderly  way;  but  if  he  had 
not  so  chosen  we  should  have  missed  the  salty 
tang  of  the  true  Walt  Whitman.  Toward  the 
last  there  was  too  much  Camden  in  his  Cosmos. 
Quite  appropriately  his  dying  word  was  le  mot 
de  Cambronne.  It  was  the  last  victory  of  an 
organ  over  an  organism.  And  he  was  a  gay 
old  pagan  who  never  called  a  sin  a  sin  when 
it  was  a  pleasure. 


Ill 

THE  BUFFOON  OF  THE  NEW 
ETERNITIES:  JULES  LAFORGUE 


"Jules  Laforgue:  Quelle  joie!" 

— J.-K.-HUYSMANS. 

ALL  victories  are  alike;  defeat  alone  displays 
an  individual  profile.  And  the  case  of  Jules 
Laforgue  wears  this  special  aspect.  Dying  on 
the  threshold  of  his  twenty-seventh  year,  com 
ing  too  old  into  a  world  too  young,  his  precocity 
as  poet  and  master  of  fantastic  prose  has  yet 
not  the  complexion  of  a  Chatterton  or  a  Keats. 
In  his  literary  remains,  slender  enough  as  to 
quantity,  there  is  little  to  suggest  a  fuller  devel 
opment  if  he  had  lived.  Like  his  protagonist 
Arthur  Rimbaud  —  surely  the  most  extraordi 
nary  poetic  apparition  of  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury  —  Jules  Laforgue  accomplished  his  destiny 
during  the  period  when  most  poets  are  mould 
ing  their  wings  preparatory  to  flight.  He  flew 
in  youth,  flew  moonward,  for  his  patron  god 
dess  was  Selene,  he  her  faithful  worshipper,  a 
true  lunalogue.  His  transcendental  indjfferent- 

32 


THE  BUFFOON 

ism  saved  him  from  the  rotten-ripe  maturity  of 
them  that  are  born  "with  a  ray  of  moonlight 
in  their  brains,"  as  Villiers  de  1'lsle  Adam  hath 
it.  And  Villiers  has  also  written:  "When  the 
forehead  alone  contains  the  existence  of  a  man, 
that  man  is  enlightened  only  from  above  his 
head;  then  his  jealous  shadow,  prostrate  under 
him,  draws  him  by  the  feet,  that  it  may  drag 
him  down  into  the  invisible."  Like  Watteau, 
Laforgue  was  "condemned"  from  the  beginning 
to  "a  green  thought  in  a  green  shade."  The 
spirit  in  him,  the  "shadow,"  devoured  his  soul, 
pulverised  his  will,  made  of  him  a  Hamlet  with 
out  a  propelling  cause,  a  doubter  in  a  world  of 
cheap  certitudes  and  insolent  fatuities,  but 
barred  him  proffering  his  pearls  to  pigs.  He 
came  before  Nietzsche,  yet  could  he  have  said 
with  Zarathustra:  "I  love  the  great  despisers 
because  they  are  the  great  adorers,  they  are 
arrows  of  longing  for  the  other  shore."  Now 
Laforgue  was  a  great  despiser. 

But  he  made  merry  over  the  ivory,  apes,  and 
peacocks  of  existence.  He  seems  less  French 
than  he  is  in  his  self-mockery,  yet  he  is  a  true 
son  of  his  time  and  of  his  country.  This  young 
Hamlet,  who  doubted  the  constancy  of  his 
mother  the  moon,  was  a  very  buffoon;  I  am 
the  new  buffoon  of  dusty  eternities,  might  have 
been  his  declaration;  a  buffoon  making  subtle 
somersaults  in  the  metaphysical  blue.  He  was 
a  metaphysician  complicated  by  a  poet.  Von 
Hartmann  it  was  who  extorted  his  homage. 

33 


THE  BUFFOON  OF 

"All  is  relative,"  was  his  war-cry  on  schools 
and  codes  and  generalisations.  His  urbanity 
never  deserted  him,  though  it  was  an  exasper 
ated  urbanity.  His  was  an  art  of  the  nerves. 
Arthur  Symons  has  spoken  of  his  "icy  ecstasy" 
and  Maurice  Maeterlinck  described  his  laughter 
as  "laughter  of  the  soul."  Like  Chopin  or 
Watteau,  he  danced  on  roses  and  thorns.  All 
three  were  consumptives  and  the  aura  of  decay 
floats  about  their  work;  all  three  suffered  from  the 
nostalgia  of  the  impossible.  The  morbid  deca 
dent  aquafortist  that  is  revealed  in  the  corrod 
ing  etchings  of  Laforgue  is  germane  to  men  in 
whom  irony  and  pity  are  perpetually  disputing. 
We  think  of  Heine  and  his  bitter-sweetness. 
Again  with  Zarathustra,  Laforgue  could  say: 
"I  do  not  give  alms.  I  am  not  poor  enough 
for  that."  He  possesses  the  sixth  sense  of  in 
finity.  A  cosmical  jester,  his  badinage  is  well- 
nigh  dolorous.  His  verse  and  prose  form  a  se 
ries  of  personal  variations.  The  lyric  in  him  is 
through  some  temperamental  twist  reversed. 
Fantastic  dreams  overflow  his  reality,  and  he  al 
ways  dreams  with  wide-open  eyes.  Watteau's 
ITndifferent !  A  philosophical  vaudevillist,  he 
juggles  with  such  themes  as  a  metaphysical  Ar- 
mida,  the  moon  and  her  minion,  Pierrot;  with 
celestial  spasms  and  the  odour  of  mortality,  or 
the  universal  sigh,  the  autumnal  refrains  of 
Chopin,  and  the  monotony  of  love.  "Life  is 
quotidian!"  he  has  sung,  and  women  are  the 
very  symbol  of  sameness,  that  is  their  tragedy — 

34 


THE  NEW  ETERNITIES 

or  comedy.  "Stability  thy  name  is  Woman!" 
exclaims  the  Hamlet  of  this  most  spiritual 
among  parodists. 

One  never  gets  him  with  his  back  to  the 
wall.  He  vanishes  in  the  shining  cloud  of  a 
witty  abstraction  when  cornered.  His  prose  is 
full  of  winged  neologisms,  his  poetry  heavy  with 
the  metaphysics  of  ennui.  Remy  de  Gourmont 
speaks  of  his  magnificent  work  as  the  prelude 
to  an  oratorio  achieved  in  silence.  Laforgue, 
himself,  called  it  an  intermezzo,  and  in  truth 
it  is  little  more.  His  intellectual  sensibility 
and  his  elemental  soul  make  for  mystifications. 
As  if  he  knew  the  frailness  of  his  tenure  on 
life,  he  sought  azure  and  elliptical  routes.  He 
would  have  welcomed  Maeterlinck's  test  ques 
tion:  "Are  you  of  those  who  name  or  those 
who  only  repeat  names?"  Laforgue  was  es 
sentially  a  namer  —  with  Gallic  glee  he  would 
have  enjoyed  renaming  the  animals  as  they  left 
the  Noachian  ark;  yes,  and  nicknaming  the 
humans,  for  he  is  a  terrible  disrespecter  of  per 
sons  and  rank  and  of  the  seats  of  the  mighty. 

Some  one  has  said  that  a  criticism  is  negative 
if  it  searches  for  what  a  writer  lacks  instead 
of  what  he  possesses.  We  should  soon  reach 
a  zero  if  we  only  registered  the  absence  of 
"necessary"  traits  in  our  poet.  He  is  so  un 
like  his  contemporaries  —  with  a  solitary  ex 
ception  —  that  his  curious  genius  seems  com 
posed  of  a  bundle  of  negatives.  But  behind 
the  mind  of  every  great  writer  there  marches 

35 


THE  BUFFOON  OF 

a  shadowy  mob  of  phrases,  which  mimics  his 
written  words,  and  makes  them  untrue  indices 
of  his  thoughts.  These  shadows  are  the  un 
expressed  ideas  of  which  the  visible  sentences 
are  only  eidolons;  a  cave  filled  with  Platonic 
phantoms.  The  phrase  of  Laforgue  has  a  tim 
bre  capable  of  infinite  prolongations  in  the  mem 
ory.  It  is  not  alone  what  he  says,  nor  the 
manner,  but  his  power  of  arousing  overtones 
from  his  keyboard.  His  aesthetic  mysticism  is 
allied  with  a  semi-brutal  frankness.  Feathers 
fallen  from  the  wings  of  peri  adorn  the  heads 
of  equivocal  persons.  Cosmogonies  jostle  evil 
farceurs,  and  the  silvery  voices  of  children  chant 
blasphemies.  Laforgue  could  repeat  with  Ar 
thur  Rimbaud:  "I  accustomed  myself  to  simple 
hallucinations:  I  saw,  quite  frankly,  a  mosque 
in  place  of  a  factory,  a  school  of  drums  kept 
by  the  angels;  post-chaises  on  the  road  to 
heaven,  a  drawing-room  at  the  bottom  of  a 
lake;  the  title  of  a  vaudeville  raised  up  horrors 
before  me.  Then  I  explained  my  magical  soph 
isms  by  the  hallucination  of  words !  I  ended 
by  finding  something  sacred  in  the  disorder  of 
my  mind"  [translation  by  Arthur  Symons]. 
But  while  Laforgue  with  all  his  "spiritual  dis 
location"  would  not  deny  the  "sacred"  dis 
order,  he  saw  life  in  too  glacial  a  manner  to 
admit  that  his  were  merely  hallucinations. 
Rather,  correspondences,  he  would  say,  for  he 
was  as  much  a  disciple  of  Baudelaire  and  Gau- 
tier  in  his  search  for  the  hidden  affinity  of 

36 


THE  NEW  ETERNITIES 

things  as  he  was  a  lover  of  the  antique  splen 
dours  in  Flaubert's  Asiatic  visions.  He,  too, 
dreamed  of  quintessential,  of  the  sheer  power 
of  golden  vocables  and  the  secret  alchemy  of 
art.  He,  too,  promenaded  his  incertitudes,  to 
use  a  self-revealing  phrase  of  Chopin's.  An 
aristocrat,  he  knew  that  in  the  country  of  the 
idiot  the  imbecile  always  will  be  king,  and, 
"like  many  a  one  who  turned  away  from  life, 
he  only  turned  away  from  the  rabble,  and  cared 
not  to  share  with  them  well  and  fire  and  fruit." 
His  Kingdom  of  Green  was  consumed  and  be 
came  grey  by  the  regard  of  his  coldly  measur 
ing  eye.  For  him  modern  man  is  an  animal 
who  bores  himself.  Laforgue  is  an  essayist  who 
is  also  a  causeur.  His  abundance  is  never 
exuberance.  Without  sentiment  or  romance, 
nevertheless,  he  does  not  suggest  ossification 
of  the  spirit.  To  dart  a  lance  at  mytho- 
mania  is  his  delight,  while  preserving  the  im 
passibility  of  a  Parnassian.  His  travesties  of 
Hamlet,  Lohengrin,  Salome,  Pan,  Perseus  en 
chant,  their  plastic  yet  metallic  prose  denotes 
the  unique  artist;  above  all  they  are  mod 
ern,  they  graze  the  hem  of  the  contemporan 
eous.  From  the  sublime  to  the  arabesque  is 
but  a  semitone  in  his  antic  mind.  Undulating 
in  his  desire  to  escape  the  automatic,  doubting 
even  his  own  scepticism,  Jules  Laforgue  is  a 
Hamlet  a  rebours.  Old  Fletcher  sings: 

"  Then  stretch  our  bones  in  a  still,  gloomy  valley, 
Nothing's  so  dainty  sweet  as  lovely  melancholy." 

37 


THE  BUFFOON  OF 

II 

He  seems  to  have  been  of  an  umbrageous 
character.  His  life  was  sad  and  simple.  He 
was  born  August  20,  1860,  at  Montevideo  — 
"Ville  en  amphitheatre,  toits  en  terrasses,  rues 
en  daumiers,  rade  enorme"  —  of  Breton  parent 
age.  He  died  at  Paris,  1887.  Gustave  Kahn, 
the  symbolist  poet,  describes  Laforgue  in  his 
Symbolistes  and  Decadents  as  a  serious  young 
man,  with  sober  English  manners  and  an  ex 
treme  rectitude  in  the  matter  of  clothes.  Not 
the  metaphysical  Narcissus  that  was  once 
Maurice  Barres  —  whose  early  books  show  the 
influence  of  Laforgue.  He  adored  the  philos 
ophy  of  the  Unconscious  as  set  forth  by  Von 
Hartmann,  was  erudite,  collected  delicate  art, 
thought  much,  read  widely,  and  was  an  ardent 
advocate  of  the  Impressionistic  painters.  I 
have  a  pamphlet  by  Mederic  Dufour,  entitled 
Etude  sur  I'yEthetique  de  Jules  Laforgue:  une 
Philosophic  de  I'lmpressionisme,  which  is  inter 
esting,  though  far  from  conclusive,  being  an 
attack  on  the  determinism  of  Taine,  and  a  de 
fence  of  Monet,  Pissarro,  and  Sisley.  But  then 
we  only  formulate  our  preferences  into  laws. 
The  best  thing  in  it  is  the  phrase :  "  There  are  no 
types,  there  is  only  humanity,"  to  the  wisdom 
of  which  we  must  heartily  subscribe.  From 
1880  to  1886  Laforgue  was  reader  to  the  Em 
press  Augusta  at  Berlin  and  was  admired  by 
the  cultivated  court  circle,  as  his  letters  to  his 

38 


THE  NEW  ETERNITIES 

sister  and  M.  Ephrussi,  his  friend,  testify.  He 
was  much  at  home  in  Germany  and  there  is  no 
denying  the  influence  of  Teutonic  thought  and 
spirit  on  his  susceptible  nature.  Naturally 
prone  to  pessimism  (he  has  called  himself  a 
"mystic  pessimist")  as  was  Amiel,  the  study  of 
Hegel,  Schopenhauer,  and  Hartmann  solidified 
the  sentiment.  He  met  an  English  girl,  Leah 
Lee,  by  name,  and  after  giving  her  lessons  in 
French,  fell  in  love,  and  in  1887  married  her. 
It  is  interesting  to  observe  the  sinister  dandy 
in  private  life,  as  a  tender  lover,  a  loving  brother. 
This  spiritual  dichotomy  is  not  absent  in  his 
poetry.  He  holds  back  nothing  in  his  self-reve 
lations,  except  the  sad  side,  though  there  is  al 
ways  an  exquisite  tremulous  sensibility  in  his 
baffling  art.  A  few  months  after  his  marriage 
he  was  attacked  by  the  fatal  malady,  as  was 
his  unfortunate  wife,  and  he  was  buried  on  his 
twenty-seventh  birthday.  Gustave  Kahn  notes 
that  few  followed  him  to  the  grave.  He  was 
unknown  except  to  some  choice  spirits,  the 
dozen  superior  persons  of  Huysmans,  scattered 
throughout  the  universe.  His  wife  survived 
him  only  a  short  time.  Little  has  been  writ 
ten  of  him,  the  most  complete  estimate  being 
that  of  Camille  Mauclair,  with  an  introduction 
by  Maeterlinck  —  who  calls  his  Hamlet  more 
Hamlet  than  Shakespeare's.  In  addition  to 
these,  and  Dufour,  Kahn,  De  Gourmont  and 
Felix  Feneon,  we  have  in  English  essays  by 
George  Moore,  Arthur  Symons,  Philip  Hale,  the 

39 


THE  BUFFOON  OF 

critic  of  music,  and  Aline  Gorren.  Mr.  Moore 
introduced  Laforgue  in  company  with  Rimbaud 
to  the  English  reading  world  and  Mr.  Symons 
devoted  to  him  one  of  his  sensitive  studies  in 
The  Symbolist  Movement  in  Literature.  Mr. 
Hale  did  the  same  years  ago  for  American 
readers  in  a  sympathetic  article,  The  Fantastical 
Jules  Laforgue.  He  also  translated  with  aston 
ishing  fidelity  to  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the 
author,  his  incomparable  Lohengrin,  Fils  de 
Parsifal.  I  regret  having  it  no  longer  in  my 
possession  so  that  I  might  quote  from  its  de 
licious  prose.  As  to  the  verse,  I  know  of  few 
attempts  to  translate  the  untranslatable.  Per 
haps  Mr.  Symons  has  tried  his  accomplished 
hand  at  the  task.  How  render  the  sumptu 
ous  assonance  and  solemn  rhythms  of  Marche 
Funebre:  O  convoi  solennel  des  soleils  mag- 
nifiques  ? 

Ill 

"Je  ne  suis  qu'un  viveur  lunaire 
Qui  faits  des  ronds  dans  les  bassins 
Et  cela,  sans  autre  dessin 
Que  devenir  un  16gendaire.  .  .  ." 

Sings  our  poet  in  the  silver-fire  verse  of 
LTmitation  de  Notre-Dame  la  Lune,  wherein 
he  asks  —  Mais  ou  sont  les  Lunes  d'Antan. 
This  Pierrot  lunaire,  this  buffoon  of  new  and 
dusty  eternities,  wrote  a  sort  of  vers  libres, 
which,  often  breaking  off  with  a  smothered  sob, 
40 


THE  NEW  ETERNITIES 

modulates  into  prose  and  sings  the  sorrows  and 
complaints  of  a  world  peopled  by  fantastic  souls, 
clowns,  somnambulists,  satyrs,  poets,  harlots, 
dainty  girls,  Cheret  posters,  pierrots,  kings  of 
pyschopathic  tastes,  blithe  birds,  and  sad-col 
oured  cemeteries.  The  poet  is  a  mocking  demon 
who  rides  on  clouds  dropping  epigrams  earth 
ward,  the  earth  that  grunts  and  sweats  be 
neath  the  sun  or  cowers  and  weeps  under  the 
stellar  prairies.  He  mockingly  calls  himself 
"The  Grand  Chancellor  of  Analysis."  Like 
Nietzsche  he  dances  when  his  heart  is  heavy, 
and  trills  his  roundelays  and  his  gamut  of  ran 
corous  flowers  with  an  enigmatic  smile  on  his 
lips.  It  is  a  strange  and  disquieting  music, 
a  pageantry  of  essences,  this  verse  with  its 
resonance  of  emerald.  Appearing  hi  fugitive 
fashion,  it  was  gathered  into  a  single  volume 
through  the  efforts  of  friends  and  with  the 
Morah'tes  legendaires  comprises  his  life-work, 
for  we  can  hardly  include  the  Melanges  pos- 
thumes,  which  consist  of  scraps  and  frag 
ments  (published  in  1903)  together  with  some 
letters,  not  a  very  weighty  addition  to  the 
dead  poet's  fame.  His  translations  of  Walt 
Whitman  I've  not  seen.  Perhaps  his  verse  is 
doomed;  it  was  born  with  the  hectic  flush  of 
early  dissolution,  but  it  is  safe  to  predict  that 
as  long  as  lovers  of  rare  literature  exist  the 
volume  of  prose  will  survive.  It  has  for  the 
gourmet  of  style  an  unending  charm,  the  charm 
en  sourdine  of  its  creator,  to  whom  a  falling 


THE  BUFFOON  OF 

leaf  or  an  empire  in  dissolution  was  of  equal 
value.  "His  work,"  wrote  Mr.  Symons,  "has 
the  fatal  evasiveness  of  those  who  shrink  from 
remembering  the  one  thing  which  they  are  un 
able  to  forget.  Coming  as  he  does  after  Rim 
baud,  turning  the  divination  of  the  other  into 
theories,  into  achieved  results,  he  is  the  eter 
nally  grown-up  nature  to  the  point  of  self- 
negation,  as  the  other  is  the  eternal  enfant  ter 
rible."  Tout  etait  pour  le  vieux  dans  le  meilleur 
des  mondes,  Laforgue  would  have  cried  in  the 
epigram  of  Paul  Bourget. 

The  prose  of  Jules  Laforgue  recalls  to  me  his 
description  of  the  orchestra  in  Salome,  the  fourth 
of  the  Moralites  legendaires.  Sur  un  mode  al- 
legre  et  fataliste,  un  orchestre  aux  instruments 
d'ivoire  improvisait  une  petite  overture  unanime. 
That  his  syllables  are  of  ivory  I  feel,  and  im 
provised,  but  his  themes  are  pluralistic,  the  im 
medicable  and  colossal  ennui  of  life  the  chiefest. 
Woman  —  the  "Eternal  Madame,"  as  Baude 
laire  calls  her  —  is  a  being  both  magical  and 
mediocre;  she  is  also  an  escape  from  the  uni 
versal  world-pain.  La  fin  de  rhomme  est 
proche  .  .  .  Antigone  va  passer  du  menage  de 
la  famille  au  menage  de  la  planete  (prophetic 
words).  But  when  lovely  woman  begins  to  talk 
of  the  propagation  of  the  ideal  she  only  means 
the  human  species.  With  Lessing  he  believes: 
"There  is,  at  most,  but  one  disagreeable  woman 
in  the  world;  a  pity  then  that  every  man  gets 
her  for  himself." 

42 


THE  NEW  ETERNITIES 

It  is  rather  singular  to  observe  in  the  writings 
of  Marinetti,  the  self-elected  leader  of  the  so- 
called  Futurists,  the  hopeless  deliquescence  of 
the  form  invented  by  Louis  Bertrand  in  his 
Gaspard  de  la  Nuit,  and  developed  with  almost 
miraculous  results  in  Baudelaire  and  terminat 
ing  with  Huysmans,  Maeterlinck,  and  Francis 
Poictevin  ("Paysages").  Rimbaud  had  inter 
vened.  In  his  Illuminations  we  read  that  "so 
soon  as  the  Idea  of  the  Deluge  had  sunk  back 
into  its  place,  a  rabbit  halted  amid  the .  sain 
foin  and  the  small  swinging  bells,  and  said  its 
prayers  to  the  rainbow  through  the  spider's 
web.  Oh !  The  precious  stones  in  hiding,  the 
flowers  already  looking  out  .  .  .  Madame  X 
established  a  piano  in  the  Alps.  .  .  .  The  car 
avans  started.  And  the  Splendid  Hotel  was 
erected  upon  the  chaos  of  ice  and  night  of  the 
Pole"  (from  the  translation  by  Aline  Gorren). 
This,  apparently  mad  sequence  of  words  and 
dissociation  of  ideas,  has  been  deciphered  by 
M.  Kahn,  and  need  not  daunt  any  one  who  has 
patience  and  ingenuity.  I  confess  I  prefer  La- 
forgue,  who  at  his  most  cryptic  is  never  so  wildly 
tantalising  as  Rimbaud. 

Moralites  legendaires  contains  six  sections. 
I  don't  know  which  to  admire  the  most,  the 
Hamlet  or  the  Lohengrin,  the  Salome  or  the 
Persee  et  Andromede.  Le  Miracle  des  Roses  is 
of  an  exceeding  charm,  though  dealing  with  the 
obvious,  while  Pan  et  la  Syrinx  has  a  quality 
which  I  can  recall  nowhere  else  in  literature; 

43 


THE  BUFFOON  OF 

perhaps  in  the  cadences  charged  with  the  magic 
and  irony  of  Chopin,  or  in  the  half-dreams  of 
Watteau,  colour  and  golden  sadness  intermin 
gled,  may  evoke  the  spiritual  parodies  of  La- 
forgue,  but  in  literature  there  is  no  analogue, 
though  Pan  is  of  classic  flavour  despite  his  very 
modern  Weltanschauung.  Syrinx  is  a  wood 
land  creature  nebulous  and  exquisite.  Pursued 
by  Pan  —  the  Eternal  Male  in  rut  —  she  does 
not  succumb  to  his  pipes,  and  after  she  has  van 
ished  in  the  lingering  wind,  he  blows  sweeter 
music  through  his  seven  reeds.  The  symbol  is 
not  difficult  to  decipher.  And  who  would  not 
succumb  to  the  languorous  melancholy  of  An- 
dromede,  not  chained  to  a  rock  but  living  on 
the  best  of  terms  with  her  monster,  who  calls 
her  Bebe !  The  sea  bores  her  profoundly.  She 
looks  for  Perseus,  who  doesn't  come;  the  sea, 
always  the  sea  without  a  moment's  weakness; 
in  brief,  not  the  stuff  of  which  friends  are  made ! 
When  the  knight  appears  and  kills  her  monster, 
he  loses  his  halo  for  Andromede,  who  cherishes 
her  monstrous  guardian.  Perseus,  a  prig  dis 
gusted  by  the  fickleness  of  the  Young  Person, 
flees,  and  the  death  of  the  monster  brings  to 
life  a  lovely  youth  —  put  under  the  spell  of 
malignant  powers  —  who  promptly  weds  his 
ward.  In  Lohengrin,  Son  of  Parsifal,  the  whole 
machinery  of  the  Wagner  opera  is  transposed 
to  the  key  of  lunar  parody.  What  ambrosia 
from  the  Walhalla  of  topsyturvy  is  this  Elsa 
with  her  "eyes  hymeneally  illumined"  as  she 

44 


THE  NEW  ETERNITIES 

awaits  her  saviour.  He  appears  and  they  are 
married.  Alas !  The  pillow  of  the  nuptial 
couch  becomes  a  swan  that  carries  off  Lohen 
grin  weary  of  the  tart  queries  made  by  his  little 
bride  concerning  love  and  sex  and  other  unim 
portant  questions  of  daily  life.  This  Elsa  is  a 
sensual  goose.  She  is  also  a  stubborn  believer 
in  the  biblical  injunction:  "Crescite  et  multi- 
plicamini,"  and  she  would  willingly  allow  the 
glittering  stranger  Knight  to  brise  le  sceau  de 
ses  petites  solitudes,  as  the  Vicar  of  Diane- 
Artemis  phrases  it.  The  landscapes  of  these 
tales  are  fantastically  beautiful,  and  scattered 
through  the  narrative  are  fragments  of  verse, 
vagrant  and  witty,  that  light  up  the  stories 
with  a  glowworm  phosphorescence. 

Salome  and  her  celebrated  eyebrows  is  a 
spiritual  sister  of  Flaubert's  damsel,  as  Elsa 
is  nearly  related  to  his  Salammbd.  She  dwells 
in  the  far-off  lies  Blanches  Esoteriques,  and 
she,  too,  is  annoyed  by  the  stupidity  of  the 
sea,  always  new,  always  respectable !  She  is 
the  first  of  the  Salomes  since  Flaubert  who  has 
caught  some  of  her  prototype's  fragrance. 
(Oscar  Wilde's  attempt  proved  mediocre.  He 
introduced  a  discordant  pathological  note,  but 
the  music  of  Richard  Strauss  may  save  his 
pasticcio.  It  interprets  the  exotic  prose  of  the 
Irishman  with  tongues  of  fire;  it  laps  up  the 
text,  encircles  it,  underlines,  amplifies,  comments, 
and  in  nodules  of  luminosity,  makes  clear  that 
which  is  dark,  ennobles  much  that  is  vain, 

45 


THE  BUFFOON  OF 

withal  it  never  insists  on  leading;  the  composer 
appears  to  follow  the  poet.)  Laforgue's  Salome 
tries  to  sport  with  the  head  of  John  the  Baptist, 
stumbles,  loses  her  footing,  and  falls  from  the 
machicolated  wall  on  jagged  rocks  below,  as  the 
head  floats  out  to  sea,  miraculously  alight. 
There  are  wit  and  philosophy  and  the  hint  of 
high  thoughts  in  Salome,  though  her  heart  like 
glass  is  cold,  empty,  and  crystalline. 

The  subtitle  of  Hamlet,  which  heads  the 
volume,  is — Or,  the  Results  of  Filial  Devo 
tion — -and  the  story,  as  Mr.  Hale  asserts,  is 
Laforgue's  masterpiece.  Here  is  a  Hamlet 
for  you,  a  prince  whose  antics  are  enough  to 
disturb  the  dust  of  Shakespeare  and  make 
the  angels  on  high  weep  with  hysterical  laugh 
ter.  Not  remotely  hinting  at  burlesque,  the 
character  is  delicately  etched.  By  the  subtle 
withdrawal  of  certain  traits,  this  Hamlet  be 
haves  as  a  man  would  who  has  been  trepanned 
and  his  moral  nature  removed  by  an  analytical 
surgeon.  He  is  irony  personified  and  is  the 
most  delightful  company  for  one  weary  of  the 
Great  Good  Game  around  and  about  us,  the 
game  of  deceit,  treachery,  politics,  love,  social 
intercourse,  religion,  and  commerce.  Laforgue's 
Hamlet  sees  through  the  hole  in  the  mundane 
millstone  and  his  every  phrase  is  like  the  flash 
of  a  scimitar. 

It  is  the  irony  of  his  position,  the  irony  of 
his  knowledge  that  he  is  Shakespeare's  creation 
and  must  live  up  to  his  artistic  paternity;  the 
46 


THE  NEW  ETERNITIES 

irony  that  he  is  au  fond  a  cabotin,  a  footlight 
strutter,  a  mouther  of  phrases  metaphysical  and 
a  despiser  of  Ophelia  (chere  petite  glu  he  names 
her)  that  are  all  so  appealing.  Intellectual 
braggart,  this  Hamlet  resides  after  his  father 
Horwendill's  "irregular  decease"  in  a  tower 
hard  by  the  Sound,  from  which  Helsingborg 
may  be  seen.  An  old,  stagnant  canal  is  be 
neath  his  windows.  In  his  chamber  are  waxen 
figures  of  his  mother,  Gerutha,  and  his  uncle- 
father,  Fengo.  He  daily  pierces  their  hearts 
with  needles  after  a  bad  old-fashioned  mediaeval 
formula  of  witchcraft.  But  it  avails  naught. 
With  a  fine  touch  he  seeks  for  his  revenge  by 
having  enacted  before  their  Majesties  of  Den 
mark  his  own  play.  They  incontinently  col 
lapse  in  mortal  nausea,  for  they  are  excellent 
critics. 

Such  a  play  scene,  withal  Shakespearian ! 
"Stability  thy  name  is  woman!"  he  exclaims 
bitterly,  for  he  fears  love  with  the  compromis 
ing  domesticity  of  marriage.  It  is  his  rigorous 
transvaluation  of  all  moral  values  and  conven 
tionalities  that  proclaims  this  Hamlet  a  man 
of  the  future.  No  half-way  treaties  with  the 
obvious  in  life,  no  crooking  the  pregnant  hinges 
of  his  opinions  to  the  powers  that  be.  An 
anarch,  pure  and  complex,  he  despises  all  meth 
ods.  What  soliloquies,  replete  with  the  biting, 
cynical  wisdom  of  a  disillusionised  soul! 

"Ah,"  he  sighs,  "there  are  no  longer  young 
girls,  they  are  all  nurses.  Ophelia  loves  me 

47 


THE  BUFFOON  OF 

because,  as  Hobbes  claims:  ' Nothing  is  more 
agreeable  in  our  ownership  of  goods  than  the 
thought  that  they  are  superior  to  the  goods 
of  others.'  Now  I  am  socially  and  morally  su 
perior  to  the  'goods'  of  her  little  friends.  She 
wishes  to  make  me,  Hamlet,  comfortable.  Ah, 
if  I  could  only  have  met  Helen  of  Narbonne ! " 
A  Hamlet  who  quotes  the  author  of  The  Levia 
than  is  a  Hamlet  with  a  vengeance. 

To  him  enter  the  players  William  and  Kate. 
He  reads  them  his  play.  Kate's  stage  name  is 
Ophelia.  "Comment!"  cries  Hamlet,  "encore 
une  Ophelia  dans  ma  potion ! "  William  doesn't 
like  the  play  because  his  part  is  not  "sym 
pathetic."  After  they  retire  Hamlet  indulges 
in  a  passionate  outburst  reproaching  the  times 
with  its  hypocrisy  and  des  hypocrites  et  routi- 
nieres  jeunes  filles.  If  women  but  knew  they 
would  prostrate  themselves  before  him  as  did 
the  weeping  ones  upon  the  body  of  the  dead 
Adonis!  The  key  of  this  discourse  is  high- 
pitched  and  cutting.  Laforgue,  a  philosopher, 
a  pessimist,  makes  his  art  the  canvas  for  his 
ironic  temperament.  The  Prince's  interview 
with  Ophelia  is  full  of  soundless  mirth.  And 
how  he  lavishes  upon  his  own  deranged  head 
offensive  abuse:  "Piteous  provincial!  Cabo- 
tin !  Pedicure !"  This  last  is  his  topmost  term 
of  contempt. 

His  parleying  with  the  grave-diggers  is  another 
stroke  of  wit.  One  of  them  tells  him  that  Po- 
lonius  is  carried  off  by  apoplexy  —  a  bust  has 
48 


THE  NEW  ETERNITIES 

been  erected  to  his  memory  bearing  the  in 
scription,  "  Words !  Words!  Words!"  He  also 
learns  that  Yorick  was  his  half-brother,  the  son 
of  a  gipsy  woman.  Ophelia  dies  —  he  hears 
this  with  mixed  feelings  —  and  he  is  informed 
that  the  young  Prince  Hamlet  is  quite  mad. 
The  grave-digger  is  a  philosopher,  he  thinks  that 
Fortinbras  is  at  hand,  that  the  best  investment 
for  his  money  will  be  in  Norwegian  bonds. 
The  funeral  cortege  approaches.  Hamlet  hides. 

His  soliloquy  upon  the  skull  of  Yorick  has 
been  partly  done  into  English  by  Mr.  Symons. 

"Alas,  poor  Yorick !  As  one  seems  to  hear  in 
this  little  shell,  the  multitudinous  roar  of  the 
ocean,  so  I  hear  the  whole  quenchless  symphony 
of  the  universal  soul,  of  whose  echoes  this  box 
was  its  cross-roads.  There's  a  solid  idea!  .  .  . 
Perhaps  I  have  twenty  or  thirty  years  to  live, 
and  I  shall  pass  away  like  the  others.  Like 
the  others?  O  Totality,  the  misery  of  being 
there  no  longer !  Ah !  I  would  like  to  set  out 
to-morrow  and  search  all  through  the  world 
for  the  most  adamantine  processes  of  embalm 
ing.  They,  too,  were  the  little  people  of  His 
tory,  learning  to  read,  trimming  their  nails, 
lighting  the  dirty  lamp  every  evening,  in  love, 
gluttonous,  vain,  fond  of  compliments,  hand 
shakes,  and  kisses,  living  on  bell-town  gossip, 
saying,  'What  sort  of  weather  shall  we  have 
to-morrow  ?  Winter  has  really  come.  .  .  .  We 
have  had  no  plums  this  year.'  Ah!  Every 
thing  is  good,  if  it  would  not  come  to  an  end. 

4Q 


THE  BUFFOON  OF 

And  thou,  Silence,  pardon  the  earth;  the  little 
madcap  hardly  knows  what  she  is  doing;  on 
the  day  of  the  great  summing-up  before  the 
Ideal,  she  will  be  labelled  with  a  piteous  idem 
in  the  column  of  the  miniature  evolutions  of 
the  Unique  Evolution,  in  the  column  of  negli 
gible  quantities.  ...  To  die  !  Evidently,  one 
does  without  knowing  it,  as,  every  night,  one 
enters  upon  sleep.  One  has  no  consciousness 
of  the  passing  of  the  last  lucid  thought  into 
sleep,  into  swooning,  into  death.  Evidently. 
But  to  be  no  more,  to  be  here  no  more,  to  be 
ours  no  more  !  Not  even  to  be  able,  any  more, 
to  press  against  one's  human  heart,  some  idle 
afternoon,  the  ancient  sadness  contained  in  one 
little  chord  on  the  piano ! " 

And  this  "secular  sadness"  pursues  the  heart 
less  Hamlet  to  the  cemetery;  he  returns  after 
dark  in  company  with  the  buxom  actress  Kate. 
They  have  eloped. 

But  the  fatal  irresolution  again  overtakes  him. 
He  would  see  Ophelia's  tomb  for  the  last  time, 
and  as  he  attempts  to  decipher  its  inscription, 
Laertes  —  idiot  d'humanite,  the  average  sensi 
ble  man  —  approaches  and  the  pair  hold  con 
verse.  It  is  a  revelation  of  the  face  of  foolish 
ness.  Laertes  reproaches  Hamlet.  He  has  by 
his  trifling  with  Ophelia  caused  her  death. 
Laertes  calls  him  a  poor  demented  one,  exclaims 
over  his  lack  of  moral  sense,  and  winds  up  by 
bidding  the  crazy  Prince  leave  the  cemetery. 
Quand  on  finit  par  folie,  c'est  qu'on  a  com- 

50 


THE  NEW  ETERNITIES 

mence  par  le  cabotinage.  (Which  is  a  consoling 
axiom  for  an  actor.)  Hamlet  with  his  naive 
irony  calmly  inquires: 

"And  thy  sister!"  This  is  too  much  for  the 
distracted  brother,  who  poignards  .  the  Prince. 
Hamlet  expires  with  Nero's  cry  on  his  lips: 

"Ah!  Ah!  Qualis  .  .  .  artifex  .  .  .  pereol" 
And,  as  the  author  remarks:  "He  rendered  to 
immutable  nature  his  Hamletic  soul."  William 
enters  and,  discovering  his  Kate,  gives  her  a 
sound  beating;  not  the  first  or  the  last,  as  she 
apprises  us.  The  poem  ends  with  this  motto: 
Un  Hamlet  de  moins;  la  race  n'en  est  pas  per 
due,  qu'on  se  le  disc !  Which  is  chilly  truth. 

The  artistic  beauty  of  the  prose,  its  haunting 
assonance,  its  supple  rhythms  make  this  Ham 
let  impossible  save  in  French.  Nor  can  the  fine 
edge  of  its  wit,  its  multiple  though  masked  iron 
ies,  its  astounding  transposition  of  Shakespearian 
humour  and  philosophy  be  aught  else  than 
loosely  paraphrased.  Laforgue's  Hamlet  is  of 
to-morrow,  for  every  epoch  orchestrates  anew 
its  own  vision  of  Hamlet.  The  eighteenth  cen 
tury  had  one;  the  nineteenth  had  another;  and 
our  generation  a  fresher.  But  we  know  of  none 
so  vital  as  this  fantastic  thinker  of  Laforgue's. 
He  must  have  had  his  ear  close  to  the  Time 
Spirit,  so  aptly  has  he  caught  the  vibrations  of 
his  whirring  loom,  so  closely  to  these  vibrations 
has  he  attuned  the  key-note  of  his  twentieth- 
century  Hamlet. 


IV 

DOSTOIEVSKY  AND  TOLSTOY 

AND  THE  YOUNGER  CHOIR  OF 
RUSSIAN  WRITERS 


"It  is  terrible  to  watch  a  man  who  has  the  Incomprehen 
sible  in  his  grasp,  does  not  know  what  to  do  with  it,  and 
sits  playing  with  a  toy  called  God." 

— Letter  to  his  brother  Michael. 

IN  his  Criticism  and  Fiction,  Mr.  Howells 
wrote:  "It  used  to  be  one  of  the  disadvan 
tages  of  the  practice  of  romance  in  America, 
which  Hawthorne  more  or  less  whimsically  la 
mented,  that  there  were  few  shadows  and  in 
equalities  in  our  broad  level  of  prosperity;  and 
it  is  one  of  the  reflections  suggested  by  Dos 
toievsky's  novel,  The  Crime  and  the  Punish 
ment,  that  whoever  struck  a  note  so  profoundly 
tragic  in  American  fiction  would  do  a  false  and 
mistaken  thing  —  as  false  and  as  mistaken  in 
its  way  as  dealing  in  American  fiction  with 
certain  nudities  which  the  Latin  peoples  seem 
to  find  edifying." 

Who  cares  nowadays  for  the  hard-and-fast 
classifications  of  idealist,  realist,  romanticist, 

52 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND   TOLSTOY 

psychologist,  symbolist,  and  the  rest  of  the 
phrases,  which  are  only  so  much  superfluous 
baggage  for  literary  camp-followers.  All  great 
romancers  are  realists,  and  the  converse  may 
be  true.  You  note  it  in  Dumas  and  his  gor 
geous,  clattering  tales  —  improbable,  but  told 
in  terms  of  the  real.  For  my  part,  I  often 
find  them  too  real,  with  their  lusty  wenches 
and  heroes  smelling  of  the  slaughter-house. 
Turn  now  to  Flaubert,  master  of  all  the  mod 
erns;  you  may  trace  the  romancer  dear  to  the 
heart  of  Hugo,  or  the  psychologist  in  Madame 
Bo  vary,  the  archaeological  novel  in  Salammb6, 
or  cold,  grey  realism  as  in  L'Education  Senti- 
mentale,  while  his  very  style,  with  its  sump 
tuous  verbal  echoes,  its  resonant,  rhythmic  pe 
riods —  is  not  all  this  the  beginning  of  that 
symbolism  carried  to  such  lengths  by  Verlaine 
and  his  followers?  Shakespeare  himself  ranged 
from  gross  naturalism  to  the  quiring  of  cheru 
bim. 

Walter  Scott  was  a  master  realist  if  you  for 
get  his  old-fashioned  operatic  scenery  and  cos 
tumes.  It  is  to  Jane  Austen  we  must  go  for 
the  realism  admired  of  Mr.  Howells,  and  justly. 
Her  work  is  all  of  a  piece.  The  Russians  are 
realists,  but  with  a  difference;  and  that  devia 
tion  forms  the  school.  Taking  Gogol  as  the 
norm  of  modern  Russian  fiction  —  Leo  Wiener's 
admirable  anthology  surprises  with  its  speci 
mens  of  earlier  men  —  we  see  the  novel  strained 
through  the  rich,  mystic  imagination  of  Dos- 

53 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND   TOLSTOY 

toievsky;  viewed  through  the  more  equable, 
artistic,  and  pessimistic  temperament  of  Tur- 
genieff ,  until  it  is  seized  by  Leo  Tolstoy  and  pas 
sionately  transformed  to  serve  his  own  didactic 
purposes.  Realism  ?  Yes,  such  as  the  world  has 
never  before  seen,  and  yet  at  times  as  ideal 
istic  as  Shelley.  It  is  not  surprising  that  Mr. 
John  M.  Robertson  wrote,  as  far  back  as  1891 : 
"In  that  strange  country  where  brute  power 
seems  to  be  throttling  all  the  highest  life  of 
the  people  .  .  .  there  yet  seems  to  be  no  ces 
sation  in  the  production  of  truthful  literary 
art  .  .  .  for  justice  of  perception,  soundness 
and  purity  of  taste,  and  skill  of  workmanship, 
we  in  England,  with  all  our  freedom,  can  offer 
no  parallel." 

Perhaps  "freedom"  is  the  reason. 

And  what  would  this  critic  have  said  of  the 
De  Profundis  of  Maxim  Gorky  ?  Are  there  still 
darker  depths  to  be  explored?  Little  wonder 
Mr.  Robertson  calls  Kipling's  "the  art  of  a  great 
talent  with  a  cheap  culture  and  a  flashy  environ 
ment."  Therefore,  to  talk  of  such  distinctions  as 
realism  and  romance  is  sheer  waste  of  time.  It  is 
but  a  recrudescence  of  the  old  classic  vs.  ro 
mantic  conflict.  Stendhal  has  written  that  a 
classicist  is  a  dead  romanticist.  It  still  holds 
good.  But  here  in  America,  "the  colourless 
shadow  land  of  fiction,"  is  there  no  tragedy  in 
Gilead  for  souls  not  supine?  Some  years  ago 
Mr.  James  Lane  Allen,  who  cannot  be  accused 
of  any  hankerings  after  the  flesh-pots  of  Zola, 

54 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND   TOLSTOY 

made  an  energetic  protest  against  what  he  de 
nominated  the  "feminine  principle"  in  our  fic 
tion.  He  did  not  mean  the  books  written  by 
women  —  in  sooth,  they  are  for  the  most  part 
boiling  over  with  the  joy  of  life  —  but  he  meant 
the  feminism  of  so  much  of  our  novel  writing 
put  forth  by  men. 

The  censor  in  Russia  by  his  very  stringency 
caused  a  great  fictional  literature  to  blossom, 
despite  his  forbidding  blue  pencil.  In  America 
the  sentiment  of  the  etiolated,  the  brainless,  the 
prudish,  the  hypocrite  is  the  censor.  (Though 
something  might  be  said  now  about  the  pen 
dulum  swinging  too  far  in  the  opposite  direc 
tion.)  Not  that  Mr.  Howells  is  strait-laced, 
prudish,  narrow  in  his  views  —  but  he  puts  his 
foot  down  on  the  expression  of  the  tragic,  the 
unusual,  the  emotional.  With  him,  charming 
artist,  it  is  a  matter  of  temperament.  He  ad 
mires  with  a  latitude  quite  foreign  to  English- 
speaking  critics  such  diverse  genius  as  Flaubert, 
Tolstoy,  Turgenieff,  Galdos,  Jane  Austen,  Emilia 
Pardo  Bazan,  Mathilde  Serao  —  greater  than 
any  modern  woman  writer  of  fiction  —  Henry 
James,  and  George  Moore.  But  he  admires  each 
on  his  or  her  native  heath.  That  their  particu 
lar  methods  might  be  given  universal  applica 
tion  he  does  not  admit.  And  when  he  wrote 
the  above  about  Dostoievsky  New  York  was 
not  so  full  of  Russians  and  Poles  and  people 
from  southeastern  Europe  as  it  is  now.  Dos 
toievsky,  if  he  were  alive,  would  find  plenty  of 

55 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND    TOLSTOY 

material,  tragedy  and  comedy  alike,  on  our 
East  Side. 

The  new  translation  of  Dostoievsky  in  Eng 
lish  by  Constance  Garnett  is  significant.  A  few 
years  ago  Crime  and  Punishment  was  the  only 
one  of  his  works  well  known.  The  Possessed, 
that  extraordinary  study  of  souls  obsessed  by 
madness  and  crime,  The  Brothers  Karamazov, 
The  House  of  the  Dead,  and  The  Idiot  are  to 
day  in  the  hands  of  American  readers  who  in 
dorse  what  Nietzsche  said  of  the  Russian  mas 
ter:  "This  profound  man  .  .  .  has  perceived 
that  Siberian  convicts,  with  whom  he  lived  for 
a  long  time  (capital  criminals  for  whom  there 
was  no  return  to  society),  were  persons  carved 
out  of  the  best,  the  hardest  and  the  most  valu 
able  material  to  be  found  in  the  Russian  do 
minions.  .  .  .  Dostoievsky,  the  only  psychol 
ogist  from  whom  I  had  anything  to  learn." 
George  Moore  once  had  dubbed  the  novelist, 
"Gaboriau  with  psychological  sauce."  Since 
then,  Mr.  Moore  has  contributed  a  charming 
introduction  to  Poor  Folk,  yet  there  is  no  deny 
ing  the  force  and  wit  of  his  hasty  epigram. 
Dostoievsky  is  often  melodramatic  and  violent; 
his  "psychology"  vague  and  tortuous. 

And  in  the  letters  exchanged  between  Nietz 
sche  and  Georg  Brandes,  the  latter  writes  of 
Dostoievsky  after  his  visit  to  Russia:  "He  is  a 
great  poet  but  a  detestable  fellow,  altogether 
Christian  in  his  emotions,  and  quite  sadique  at 
the  same  time.  All  his  morality  is  what  you 

56 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND   TOLSTOY 

have  christened  'Slave's'  morality.  .  .  .  Look 
at  Dostoievsky's  face:  half  the  face  of  a 
Russian  peasant,  half  the  physiognomy  of  a 
criminal,  flat  nose,  little  penetrating  eyes,  under 
lids  trembling  with  nervousness,  the  forehead 
large  and  well-shaped,  the  expressive  mouth 
telling  of  tortures  without  count,  of  unfathom 
able  melancholy,  of  morbid  desires,  endless 
compassion,  passionate  envy.  An  epileptic 
genius  whose  very  exterior  speaks  of  the 
stream  of  mildness  that  fills  his  heart,  of  the 
wave  of  almost  insane  perspicuity  that  gets 
into  his  head,  finally  the  ambition,  the  great 
ness  of  endeavour,  and  the  envy  that  small- 
mindedness  begets.  .  .  .  His  heroes  are  not 
only  poor  and  crave  sympathy,  but  are  half 
imbeciles,  sensitive  creatures,  noble  drabs,  often 
victims  of  hallucinations,  talented  epileptics, 
enthusiastic  seekers  after  martyrdom,  the  very 
types  that  we  are  compelled  to  suppose  prob 
able  among  the  apostles  and  disciples  of  the 
early  Christian  era.  Certainly  no  mind  stands 
further  removed  from  the  Renaissance." 

Of  all  Dostoievsky's  portraits  after  Sonia, 
the  saintly  prostitute,  that  of  Nastasia  Phil- 
ipovna  in  The  Idiot  is  the  most  lifelike  and 
astounding.  The  career  of  this  half-mad  girl 
is  sinister  and  tragic;  she  is  half-sister  in  her 
temperamental  traits  to  Paulina  in  the  same 
master's  admirable  story  The  Gambler.  Gru- 
shenka  in  The  Brothers  Karamazov  is  another 
woman  of  the  demoniac  type  to  which  Nas- 

57 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND   TOLSTOY 

tasia  belongs.  Then  there  are  high-spirited, 
hysterical  girls  such  as  Katarina  in  Karamazov, 
Aglaia  Epanchin  in  The  Idiot,  or  Liza  in  The 
Possessed  (Besi).  The  border-land  of  puberty 
is  a  favourite  theme  with  the  Russian  writer. 
And  consider  the  splendidly  fierce  old  women, 
mothers,  aunts,  grandmothers  (Granny  in  The 
Gambler  is  a  full-length  portrait  worthy  of 
Hogarth)  and  befuddled  old  men  —  retired  from 
service  in  state  and  army;  Dostoievsky  is  a 
masterly  painter  of  drunkards,  drabs,  and  neu 
ropaths.  Prince  Mushkin  (or  Myshkin)  the 
semi-idiot  in  The  Idiot  is  depicted  with  sur 
passing  charm.  He  is  half  cracked  and  an  epi 
leptic,  but  is  one  of  the  most  lovable  young 
men  in  fiction.  Thinking  of  him,  you  recall 
what  Nietzsche  wrote  of  Christ:  "One  regrets 
that  a  Dostoievsky  did  not  live  in  the  neigh 
bourhood  of  this  most  interesting  decadent,  I 
mean  some  one  who  knew  just  how  to  per 
ceive  the  thrilling  charm  of  such  a  mixture  of 
the  sublime,  the  sickly,  and  the  childish."  Here 
is  a  "moral  landscape  of  the  dark  Russian  soul," 
and  an  exemplification  in  the  Prince  Myshkin 
of  The  Idiot,  who  is  evidently  an  attempt  to 
portray  a  latter-day  Christ. 

Raskolnikov  in  Crime  and  Punishment,  like 
Rogozhin  in  The  Idiot,  Stavrogin  in  The  Pos 
sessed  were  supermen  before  Nietzsche,  but  all 
half  mad.  A  famous  alienist  has  declared  that 
three-fourths  of  Dostoievsky's  characters  are 
quite  mad.  This  is  an  exaggeration,  though 

58 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND   TOLSTOY 

there  are  many  about  whom  the  aura  of  madness 
and  melancholy  hovers.  Dostoievsky  himself 
was  epileptic;  poverty  and  epilepsy  were  his  com 
panions  through  a  life  crowded  with  unhappiness. 
(Born  1822,  died  1881.)  He  was  four  years  in 
Siberia,  condemned  though  innocent  as  a  member 
of  the  Petrachevsky  group.  He  tells  us  that  the 
experience  calmed  his  nerves.  His  recollections 
of  his  Dead  House  are  harrowing,  and  make  the 
literature  of  prison  life,  whether  written  by  Hugo, 
Zola,  Tolstoy,  or  others,  like  the  literary  exer 
cise  of  an  amateur.  It  is  this  sense  of  reality, 
of  life  growing  like  grass  over  one's  head,  that 
renders  the  novels  of  Dostoievsky  "human  doc 
uments."  Calling  himself  a  "proletarian  of  let 
ters"  this  tender-hearted  man  denied  being 
a  psychologist  —  which  pre-eminently  he  was: 
"They  call  me  a  psychologist;  it  is  not  true. 
I  am  only  a  realist  in  the  highest  sense  of  the 
word,  i.  e.,  I  depict  all  the  soul's  depths." 

If  he  has  shown  us  the  soul  of  the  madman, 
drunkard,  libertine,  the  street-walker,  he  has 
also  exposed  the  psychology  of  the  gambler. 

He  knew.  He  was  a  desperate  gambler  and 
in  Baden  actually  starved  in  company  with  his 
devoted  wife.  These  experiences  may  be  found 
depicted  in  The  Gambler. 

He  has  been  called  the  "Bossuet  of  the  de- 
traques,"  but  I  prefer  that  other  and  more  ap 
propriate  title,  the  Dante  of  the  North.  His 
novels  are  infernos.  How  well  Nietzsche  studied 
him;  they  were  fellow  spirits  in  suffering.  All 

59 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND    TOLSTOY 

Dostoievsky  is  in  his  phrase:  "There  are  no 
ugly  women"  —  put  in  the  mouth  of  the  senile, 
debauched  Karamazov,  a  companion  portrait  to 
Balzac's  Baron  Hulot.  His  love  for  women  has 
a  pathological  cast.  His  young  girls  discuss  un 
pleasant  matters.  Even  Frank  Wedekind  is  an 
ticipated  in  his  Spring's  Awakening  by  the  Rus 
sian  in  The  Brothers  Karamazov:  "How  can 
Katarina  have  a  baby  if  she  isn't  married?" 
cries  one  of  the  youngsters,  a  question  which  is 
the  very  nub  of  the  Wedekind  play.  "Two 
parallel  lines  may  meet  in  eternity,"  which 
sounds  like  Ibsen's  query:  "Two  and  two  may 
make  five  on  the  planet  Jupiter."  He  was 
deeply  pious,  nevertheless  a  questioner.  His 
books  are  full  of  theological  wranglings.  Con 
sider  the  "prose-poem"  of  the  Grand  Inquisitor 
and  the  second  coming  of  Christ.  Or  such  an 
idea  as  the  "craving  for  community  of  worship 
is  the  chief  misery  of  man,  of  all  humanity  from 
the  beginning  of  time."  We  recognise  Nietzsche 
in  Dostoievsky's  "the  old  morality  of  the  old 
slave  man,"  and  a  genuine  poet  in  "the  secret  of 
the  earth  mingles  with  the  mystery  of  the  stars." 
His  naive  conception  of  eternity  as  "a  chamber 
something  like  a  bathhouse,  long  neglected,  and 
with  spider's  webs  in  its  corners"  reminds  us  of 
Nietzsche  when  he  describes  his  doctrine  of  the 
Eternal  Recurrence.  The  Russian  has  told  us  in 
memorable  phrases  of  the  blinding,  intense  hap 
piness,  a  cerebral  spasm,  which  lasts  the  fraction 
of  a  second  at  the  beginning  of  an  epileptic  at- 
60 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND    TOLSTOY 

tack.  For  it  he  declares,  for  that  brief  mo 
ment  during  which  paradise  is  disclosed,  he 
would  sacrifice  a  lifetime.  Little  wonder  in  the 
interim  of  a  cold,  grey,  miserable  existence  he 
suffered  from  what  he  calls  "mystic  fear,"  the 
fear  of  fear,  such  as  Maeterlinck  shows  us  in 
The  Intruder.  As  for  the  socialists  he  says 
their  motto  is:  "Don't  dare  to  believe  in  God, 
don't  dare  to  have  property,  fraternity  or  death, 
two  millions  of  heads !" 

The  foundational  theme  of  his  work  is  an 
overwhelming  love  for  mankind,  a  plea  for  sol 
idarity  which  too  often  degenerates  into  sickly 
sentimentalism.  He  imitated  Dickens,  George 
Sand,  and  Victor  Hugo  —  the  Hugo  of  Les  Mis- 
erables.  He  hated  Turgenieff  and  caricatured 
him  in  The  Possessed.  It  is  true  that  in  dia 
logue  he  has  had  few  superiors;  his  men  and 
women  talk  as  they  would  talk  in  life  and  only 
in  special  instances  are  mouthpieces  for  the 
author's  ideas  —  in  this  quite  different  from  so 
many  of  Tolstoy's  characters.  Merejkowski  has 
said  without  fear  of  contradiction  that  Dostoi 
evsky  is  like  the  great  dramatists  of  antiquity 
in  his  "art  of  gradual  tension,  accumulation,  in 
crease,  and  alarming  concentration  of  dramatic 
action."  His  books  are  veritably  tragic.  In 
Russian  music  alone  may  be  found  a  parallel 
to  his  poignant  pathos  and  gloomy  imaginings 
and  shuddering  climaxes.  What  is  more  won 
derful  than  Chapter  I  of  The  Idiot  with  its 
adumbration  of  the  entire  plot  and  characterisa- 
61 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND   TOLSTOY 

tion  of  the  book,  or  Chapter  XV  and  its  dra 
matic  surprises. 

His  cardinal  doctrine  of  non-resistance  is  il 
lustrated  in  the  following  anecdote.  One  eve 
ning  while  walking  in  St.  Petersburg,  evidently 
in  meditation  a  beggar  asked  for  alms.  Dos 
toievsky  did  not  answer.  Enraged  by  his  ap 
parent  indifference,  the  man  gave  him  such  a 
violent  blow  that  he  was  knocked  off  his  legs. 
On  arising  he  picked  up  his  hat,  dusted  his 
clothes,  and  walked  away;  but  a  policeman  who 
saw  the  attack  came  running  toward  the  beg 
gar  and  took  him  to  the  lock-up.  Despite  his 
protest  Dostoievsky  accompanied  them.  He 
refused  to  make  a  charge,  for  he  argued  that 
he  was  not  sure  the  prisoner  was  the  culpable 
one;  it  was  dark  and  he  had  not  seen  his  face. 
Besides,  he  might  have  been  sick  in  his  mind; 
only  a  sick  person  would  attack  in  such  a  man 
ner.  Sick,  cried  the  examining  magistrate,  that 
drunken  good-for-nothing  sick !  A  little  rest  in 
jail  would  do  him  good.  You  are  wrong,  con 
tradicted  the  accused,  I  am  not  drunk  but  hun 
gry.  When  a  man  has  eaten,  he  doesn't  believe 
that  another  is  starving.  True,  answered  Dos 
toievsky,  this  poor  chap  was  crazy  with  hun 
ger.  I  shan't  make  a  complaint.  Nevertheless 
the  ruffian  was  sentenced  to  a  month's  impris 
onment.  Dostoievsky  gave  him  three  roubles 
before  he  left.  Now  this  kind  man  was,  strange 
as  it  may  seem,  an  anti-Semite.  His  diary  re 
vealed  the  fact  after  his  death.  In  life  he  kept 
62 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND   TOLSTOY 

this  prejudice  to  himself.  I  always  think  of 
Dostoievsky  as  a  man  in  shabby  clothes  mount 
ing  at  twilight  an  obscure  staircase  in  some  St. 
Petersburg  hovel,  the  moon  shining  dimly 
through  the  dirty  window-panes,  and  cobwebs 
and  gloom  abounding.  "I  love  to  hear  singing 
to  a  street  organ;  I  like  it  on  cold,  dark,  damp 
autumn  evenings,  when  all  the  passers-by  have 
pale,  green,  sickly  faces,  or  when  wet  snow  is 
falling  straight  down;  the  night  is  windless  .  .  . 
and  the  street  lamps  shine  through  it,"  said 
Raskolnikov.  Here  is  the  essential  Dostoievsky. 
And  his  tenacious  love  of  life  is  exemplified  in 
Raskolnikov's  musing:  "Where  is  it  I've  read 
that  some  one  condemned  to  death  says  or 
thinks  an  hour  before  his  death,  that  if  he  had 
to  live  on  some  high  rock,  on  such  a  narrow 
ledge  that  he  would  only  have  room  to  stand, 
and  the  ocean,  everlasting  darkness,  everlasting 
solitude,  everlasting  tempest  around  him,  if  he 
had  to  remain  standing  on  a  square  yard  of 
space  all  his  life,  a  thousand  years,  eternity,  it 
were  better  to  live  than  to  die  at  once."  We 
feel  the  repercussion  of  his  anguish  when  death 
was  imminent  for  alleged  participation  in  a 
nihilistic  conspiracy.  Or,  again,  that  horrid  pic 
ture  of  a  "boxed  eternity":  "We  always  im 
agine  eternity  as  something  beyond  our  concep 
tion,  something  vast,  vast!  But  why  must  it 
be  vast?  Instead  of  all  that,  what  if  it's  one 
little  room,  like  a  bath-house  in  the  country, 
black  and  grimy  and  spiders  in  every  corner,  and 

63 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND   TOLSTOY 

that's  all  eternity  is?  I  sometimes  fancy  it  is 
that."  The  grotesque  and  the  sinister  often 
nudge  elbows  in  these  morbid,  monstrous  pages. 
His  belief  in  the  unchanging  nature  of  man 
kind  is  pure  fatalism.  "Afterwards  I  under 
stand  .  .  .  that  men  won't  change  and  that 
nobody  can  alter  it  and  that  it's  not  worth 
wasting  efforts  over  it.  ...  Whoever  is  strong 
in  mind  and  spirit  will  have  power  over  them. 
He  who  despises  most  things  will  be  a  lawgiver 
among  them,  and  he  who  dares  most  of  all 
will  be  most  in  right.  Any  one  who  is  greatly 
daring  is  right  in  their  eyes.  So  it  has  been 
till  now,  and  so  it  always  will  be."  Thus  Ro- 
dion,  the  student  to  the  devoted  Sonia.  It 
sounds  like  Nietzsche  avant  la  lettre.  Or  the 
cynicism  of:  "Every  one  thinks  of  himself,  and 
he  lives  most  gaily  who  knows  best  how  to  de 
ceive  himself."  He  speaks  of  his  impending  ex 
ile  to  Siberia:  "But  I  wonder  shall  I  in  those 
fifteen  or  twenty  years  grow  so  meek  that  I 
shall  humble  myself  before  people  and  whimper 
at  every  word  that  I  am  a  criminal.  Yes,  that's 
it,  that's  it,  that's  what  they  are  sending  me 
there  for,  that's  what  they  want.  Look  at 
them  running  to  and  fro  about  the  streets, 
every  one  of  them  a  scoundrel  and  a  criminal 
at  heart,  and  worse  still,  an  idiot.  But  try  to 
get  me  off  and  they'd  be  wild  with  righteous 
indignation.  Oh,  how  I  hate  them  all ! "  (The 
above  excerpts  are  from  the  admirable  transla 
tion  by  Constance  Garnett.) 

64 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND    TOLSTOY 

As  for  his  own  mental  condition,  Dostoievsky 
gives  us  a  picture  of  it  in  Injury  and  Insult: 
"As  soon  as  it  grew  dusk  I  gradually  fell  into 
that  state  of  mind  which  so  often  overmasters 
me  at  night  since  I've  been  ill,  and  which  I 
shall  call  mystic  fear.  It  is  a  crushing  anxiety 
about  something  which  I  can  neither  define  nor 
even  conceive,  which  does  not  actually  exist, 
but  which  perhaps  is  about  to  be  realised,  at 
this  very  moment,  to  appear  and  rise  up  before 
me  like  an  inexorable,  horrible  misshapen  fact." 
This  "frenzied  anguish"  is  a  familiar  stigma  of 
epilepsy.  Its  presence  denotes  the  approach 
of  an  attack. 

But  the  "sacred  malady"  had,  in  the  case  of 
Dostoievsky,  its  compensations.  Through  this 
fissure  in  the  walls  of  his  neurotic  soul  he  peered 
and  saw  its  strange  perturbations,  divined  their 
origins  in  the  very  roots  of  his  being,  and  re 
corded  —  as  did  Poe,  Baudelaire,  and  Nietzsche 
—  the  fluctuations  of  his  sick  will.  With  this 
Russian,  his  Hamlet-like  introspection  becomes 
vertigo,  and  life  itself  fades  into  a  dream  com 
pounded  of  febrile  melancholy  or  blood  lust. 
It  was  not  without  warrant  that  he  allows  Ro- 
goszin,  in  The  Idiot,  to  murder  Nastasia  Phili- 
povna,  because  of  her  physical  charms.  The 
aura  of  the  man  foredoomed  to  morbid  crime  is 
unmistakable. 

The  letters  of  Fyodor  Michailovitch  Dostoi 
evsky  came  as  a  revelation  to  his  admirers.  We 
think  of  him  as  overflowing  with  sentiment  for 

65 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND    TOLSTOY 

his  fellow  man,  a  socialist,  one  who  "went  to 
the  people"  long  before  Tolstoy  dreamed  of 
the  adventure,  a  man  four  years  in  prison  in 
Siberia,  and  six  more  in  that  bleak  country 
under  official  inspection;  truly,  a  martyr  to  his 
country,  an  epileptic  and  a  genius.  You  may 
be  disappointed  to  learn  from  these  telltale  doc 
uments  —  translated  by  Ethel  Colburn  Mayne — 
that  the  Russian  writer  while  in  exile  avoided 
his  fellow  convicts,  was  very  unpopular  with 
them,  and  that  throughout  his  correspondence 
there  are  numerous  contemptuous  references  to 
socialism  and  "going  to  the  people."  He  pre 
ferred  solitude,  he  asserts  more  than  once,  to 
the  company  of  common  folk  or  mediocre  per 
sons.  He  gives  Tolstoy  at  his  true  rating,  but 
is  cruel  to  Turgenieff  —  who  never  wished  him 
harm.  The  Dostoievsky  caricature  portrait  of 
Turgenieff  —  infinitely  the  superior  artist  of  the 
two  —  in  The  Possessed  is  absurd.  Turgenieff 
forgave,  but  Dostoievsky  never  forgave  Tur 
genieff  for  this  forgiveness.  Another  merit  of 
these  letters  is  the  light  they  shed  on  the  true 
character  of  Tolstoy,  who  is  shown  in  his  proper 
environment,  neither  a  prophet  nor  a  heaven- 
storming  reformer.  Dostoievsky  invented  the 
phrase:  "land-proprietor  literature,"  to  describe 
the  fiction  of  both  Tolstoy  and  Turgenieff.  He 
was  abjectly  poor,  gambled  when  he  got  the 
chance  (which  was  seldom),  hated  Western  Eu 
rope,  France  and  Germany  in  particular,  but 
admired  the  novels  of  George  Sand,  Victor  Hugo, 
66 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND   TOLSTOY 

and  Charles  Dickens.  He  tells  us  much  of  his 
painful  methods  of  writing  ("what  do  I  want 
with  fame  when  I'm  writing  for  daily  bread?" 
he  bitterly  asks  his  brother),  and  the  overshad 
owing  necessity  that  compelled  him  to  turn  in 
"copy"  when  he  lacked  food,  fire,  friends.  No 
wonder  this  private  correspondence  shows  us 
anything  but  a  lover  of  mankind,  no  matter 
how  suffused  in  humanitarianism  are  his  books, 
with  their  drabs,  tramps,  criminals,  and  drunk 
ards.  Turgenieff  divined  in  him  Sadistic  pre 
dispositions;  he  was  certainly  a  morbid  man; 
while  Tolstoy  wrote  of  him:  "It  never  entered 
my  head  to  compare  myself  with  him.  ...  I 
am  weeping  now  over  the  news  of  his  death  .  .  . 
and  I  never  saw  the  man."  Dostoievsky  was  a 
profound  influence  on  the  art  and  life  of  Tolstoy. 
It  may  interest  musical  persons  to  learn  that 
it  was  through  the  efforts  of  Adolphe  Henselt, 
piano  virtuoso  and  composer,  that  Dostoiev 
sky  was  finally  allowed  to  leave  Siberia  and 
publish  his  writings.  Henselt,  who  was  at  the 
time  court  pianist  and  teacher  of  the  Czarina, 
appealed  to  her,  and  thus  the  ball  was  set  roll 
ing  that  ended  in  the  clemency  of  the  Czar. 
To  Henselt,  then,  Russian  literature  is  indebted 
for  the  "greater  Dostoievsky."  Why  he  was 
ever  sent  to  Siberia  is  still  a  mystery.  He  had 
avowed  his  disbelief  in  the  teachings  of  the 
Petrachevsky  group,  and  only  frequented  their 
meetings  because  "advanced"  European  litera 
ture  was  read  aloud.  Dostoievsky  was  never  a 

67 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND    TOLSTOY 

nihilist,  and  in  his  open  letter  to  some  St.  Peters 
burg  students  he  gives  them  sound  advice  as  to 
the  results  of  revolution.  Poor  man  !  He  knew 
from  harsh  experience. 

II 

Thanks  to  the  Count  Melchoir  de  Vogue, 
who  introduced  Tolstoy  to  the  French  in  Le 
Roman  Russe  (containing  studies  of  Pushkin, 
Gogol,  Turgenieff,  Dostoievsky)  literary  Paris 
was  for  a  time  saturated  in  Russian  mys 
ticism,  and  what  the  clear-headed  Alphonse 
Daudet  called  "Russian  pity."  It  was  Count 
de  Vogue,  member  of  the  Academy  and  Neo- 
Catholic  (as  the  group  headed  by  Ernest  La- 
visse  elected  to  style  itself),  who  compressed 
all  Tolstoy  in  an  epigram  as  having  ("the  mind 
of  an  English  chemist  in  the  soul  of  a  Hindoo 
Buddhist")  On  dirait  1'esprit  d'un  chimiste 
anglais  dans  Fame  d'un  buddhiste  hindou. 

The  modulation  of  a  soul,  at  first  stagnant, 
then  plunged  into  the  gulf  of  hopelessness,  and 
at  last  catching  a  glimpse  of  light,  is  most 
clearly  expressed  by  Leo  Nikolaievitch  in  his 
Resurrection.  That  by  throwing  yourself  again 
into  the  mire  you  may  atone  for  early  trans 
gressions  —  the  muddy  sins  of  your  youth  — 
is  one  of  those  deadly  ideas  born  in  the  crazed 
brain  of  an  East  Indian  jungle-haunting  fanatic. 
It  possibly  grew  out  of  the  barbarous  custom 
of  blood  sacrifices.  Waiving  the  tales  told  of 
68 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND   TOLSTOY 

his  insincerity  by  Frail  Anna  Seuron,  we  know 
that  Tolstoy  wrestled  with  the  five  thousand 
devils  of  doubt  and  despair,  and  found  light,  his 
light,  in  a  most  peculiar  fashion.  But  he  is 
often  the  victim  of  his  own  illusions.  That, 
Vogue,  a  great  admirer,  pointed  out  some  years 
ago.  Turgenieff  understood  Tolstoy;  so  did 
Dostoievsky,  and  so  does  latterly  the  novelist 
Dmitri  Merejkowski. 

TurgeniefFs  appeal  to  Tolstoy  is  become  his 
toric,  and  all  the  more  pathetic  because  writ 
ten  on  the  eve  of  his  death. 

Dear  and  beloved  Leo  Nikolaievitch:  I  have 
not  written  to  you  for  a  long  time,  for  I  lie  on 
my  deathbed.  I  cannot  get  well;  that  is  not  to 
be  thought  of.  But  I  write  in  order  to  tell  you 
how  glad  1  am  to  have  been  your  contemporary, 
and  to  make  my  last  earnest  request.  My  friend, 
return  to  literary  work.  This  talent  of  yours  has 
come  from  where  all  else  comes.  Oh,  how  happy 
I  should  be  could  I  believe  that  my  entreaty  would 
prevail  with  you.  My  friend,  our  great  national 
writer,  grant  my  request. 

This  may  be  found,  if  we  remember  aright, 
in  the  Halperine-Kaminsky  memoir. 

Turgeneiff,  who  was  the  greater  artist  of  the 
pair,  knew  that  Tolstoy  was  on  the  wrong*path 
with  his  crack-brained  religious  and  social  no 
tions;  knew  that  in  his  becoming  the  writer 
of  illogical  tracts  and  pamphlets,  Russia  was 
losing  a  great  artist.  What  would  he  have 

69 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND    TOLSTOY 

said  if  he  had  lived  to  read  the  sad  recantation 
and  artistic  suicide  of  Tolstoy:  "I  consign  my 
own  artistic  productions  to  the  category  of  bad 
art,  except  the  story,  God  Sees  the  Truth, 
which  seeks  a  place  in  the  first  class,  and  The 
Prisoner  of  the  Caucasus,  which  belongs  to 
the  second."  Also  sprach  Tolstoy  in  that  mad 
man's  book  called  What  is  Art  ?  a  work  wherein 
he  tried  to  outvie  Nordau's  abuse  of  beautiful 
art. 

The  Ninth  Symphony  of  Beethoven,  Hamlet, 
Macbeth,  Dante,  and  Goethe,  are  all  consigned 
to  the  limbo  of  bad  art;  bad  because  not 
"  understanded  of  the  people."  The  peasant, 
the  moujik,  is  to  be  the  criterion  of  art,  an 
art  which,  in  that  case,  ought  to  be  a  cross 
between  fireworks  and  the  sign-writing  of  the 
Aztecs.  Vogue  declared  that  Tolstoy  had,  like 
an  intrepid  explorer,  leaped  into  an  abysm  of 
philosophical  contradictions.  Even  the  moder 
ate  French  critic  Faguet  becomes  enraged  at 
the  puerilities  of  the  Russian.  He  wrote: 
"Tolstoy,  cornme  createur,  comme  romancier, 
comme  poete  epique,  pour  mieux  dire,  est  un 
des  quatre  ou  cinq  plus  grands  genies  de  notre 
siecle.  Comme  penseur,  il  est  un  des  plus 
faibles  esprits  de  1'Europe." 

Not  all  that,  replies  Remy  de  Gourmont; 
Tolstoy  may  be  wilclly  mistaken,  but  he  is  never 
weak-minded.  We  think  it  is  his  strength, 
his  intensity  that  sends  him  caracoling  on  a 
dozen  different  roads  in  search  of  salvation. 
70 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND   TOLSTOY 

How  a  man  lacking  the  critical  faculty  may 
be  misled  is  to  be  seen  in  What  is  Art?  To 
master  his  subject  the  deluded  novelist  read  all 
the  essays,  disquisitions,  and  works  he  could  find 
on  the  theme  of  aesthetics.  This  as  a  prepara 
tion  for  clear  thinking.  It  reminds  one  of  that 
comical  artist  Pellerin,  in  Flaubert's  L'Educa- 
tion  Sentimentale,  who  devoured  all  the  aes 
thetic  treatises,  ancient  and  modern,  in  search  of 
a  true  theory  of  the  beautiful  before  he  painted 
a  picture;  and  he  had  so  thoroughly  absorbed 
the  methods  of  various  painters  that  he  could 
not  sit  down  at  his  easel  in  the  presence  of 
his  model  without  asking  himself:  Shall  I  "do" 
her  a  la  Gainsborough,  or,  better  still,  in  the 
romantic  and  mysterious  manner  of  M.  Dela 
croix,  with  fierce  sunsets,  melting  moons,  gui 
tars,  bloodshed,  balconies,  and  the  cries  of  them 
that  are  assassinated  for  the  love  of  love? 

Tolstoy  reaches,  after  many  hundred  pages  of 
his  essay,  the  astoundingly  original  theory  that 
art  "is  to  establish  brotherly  union  among 
men,"  which  was  better  said  by  Aristotle,  and 
probably  first  heard  by  him  as  a  Socratic  pearl 
of  wisdom.  It  remained  for  Merejkowski  to 
set  right  the  Western  world  in  its  estimate  of 
Tolstoy  as  man  and  artist.  In  his  frank  study, 
the  facts  in  the  case  are  laid  bare  by  a  skilled, 
impartial  hand.  What  he  writes  is  well  known 
among  Russians;  it  may  shock  English-speak 
ing  worshippers,  who  do  not  accept  Tolstoy  as 
a  great  artist,  but  as  the  prophet  of  a  new  dis- 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND    TOLSTOY 

pensation  —  and  it  may  be  said,  without  beat 
ing  about  the  bush,  he  rather  liked  the  niche 
in  which  he  was  placed  by  these  uncritical 
zealots. 

The  fate  of  the  engineer  hoist  by  his  own 
petard  is  Tolstoy's.  The  peasants  of  his  coun 
try  understand  him  as  little  as  they  understand 
Beethoven,  that  Beethoven  he  so  bitterly,  so 
unjustly  assailed  in  The  Kreutzer  Sonata. 
(Poor  Beethoven.  Why  did  not  Tolstoy  se 
lect  Tristan  and  Isolde  if  he  wished  some  fleshly 
music,  some  sensualistic  caterwauling,  as  Hux 
ley  phrased  it?  But  a  melodious  violin  and 
piano  sonata !)  Tolstoy  may  go  barefoot,  dig 
for  potatoes,  wear  his  blouse  hanging  outside, 
but  the  peasantry  will  never  accept  him  as  one 
of  their  own.  He  has  written  volumes  about 
"going  to  the  people,"  and  the  people  do  not 
want  him,  do  not  comprehend  him.  And  that 
is  Tolstoy's  tragedy,  as  it  was  the  tragedy  of 
Walt  Whitman. 

Curious  students  can  find  all  they  wish  of 
Tolstoy's  psychology  in  Merejkowski's  book. 
One  thing  we  cannot  forbear  dwelling  upon  — 
Dostoievsky's  significance  in  any  discussion  of 
Tolstoy.  Dostoievsky  was  a  profounder  na 
ture,  greater  than  Tolstoy,  though  he  was  not 
the  finished  literary  artist.  All  that  Tolstoy 
tried  to  be,  Dostoievsky  was.  He  did  not  "go 
to  the  people"  (that  pose  of  dilettantish  anarchy) 
—  he  was  born  of  them;  he  did  not  write  about 
Siberian  prisons  from  hearsay,  he  lived  in  them; 
72 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND   TOLSTOY 

he  did  not  attempt  to  dive  into  the  deep,  social 
waters  of  the  "submerged  tenth,"  because  he 
himself  seldom  emerged  to  the  surface.  In  a 
word,  Dostoievsky  is  a  profounder  psychologist 
than  Tolstoy;  his  faith  was  firmer;  his  attacks 
of  epilepsy  gave  him  glimpses  of  the  underworld 
of  the  soul,  terrifying  visions  of  his  subconscious 
self,  of  his  subliminal  personality.  And  he  had 
the  courage  of  his  chimera. 

Tolstoy  feared  art  as  being  too  artificial,  and, 
as  Merejkowski  shows:  "From  the  dread  mask 
of  Caliban  peeps  out  the  familiar  and  by  no 
means  awe-inspiring  physiognomy  of  the  ob 
stinate  Russian  democrat  squire,  the  gentleman 
Positivist  of  the  sixties."  He  never  took  writ 
ing  as  seriously  as  Dostoievsky;  in  Tolstoy  there 
is  a  strong  leaven  of  the  aristocrat,  the  man 
who  rather  despises  a  mere  pen  worker.  Con 
trast  Dostoievsky's  attitude  before  his  work, 
recall  the  painful  parturition  of  books,  his  sweat 
ing,  remorseful  days  and  nights  when  he  could 
not  produce.  And  now  Tolstoy  tells  us  that 
Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  is  greater  than  Shakespeare. 
Is  it  any  wonder  Turgenieff  remonstrated  with 
him?  Is  it  any  wonder  if,  after  reading  one  of 
his  latter-day  tracts,  we  are  reminded  of  The 
Washerwoman  of  Finchley  Common,  that  classic 
in  the  polemics  of  sniffling  piety?  The  truth 
is  that  Tolstoy,  a  wonderful  artist  in  plastic 
portraiture,  consciously  or  unconsciously  fash 
ioned  the  Tolstoy  legend,  as  did  Richard  Wag 
ner  the  Wagner  legend,  Victor  Hugo  the  Hugo 

73 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND   TOLSTOY 

legend.  Men  of  genius  and  imagination  are  nearly 
all  play-actors  in  matters  autobiographical. 

It  is  to  Dostoievsky,  once  the  despised  out 
cast,  that  we  must  go  for  the  human  docu 
ments  of  misery,  the  naked  soul,  the  heart  of 
man  buffeted  by  fate.  If  you  think  Resurrection 
strong,  then  read  Dostoievsky's  The  House  of 
the  Dead.  If  Anna  Karenina  has  wooed  you  — 
as  it  must  —  take  up  The  Idiot;  and  if  you 
are  impressed  by  the  epical  magnitude  of  War 
and  Peace,  study  that  other  epic  of  souls,  The 
Brothers  Karamazov,  which  illuminates,  as  if 
with  ghastly  flashes  of  lightning,  the  stormy 
hearts  of  mankind.  Tolstoy  wrote  of  life;  Dos 
toievsky  lived  it,  drank  its  sour  dregs  —  for  he 
was  a  man  accursed  by  luck  and,  like  the  apoc 
alyptic  dreamer  of  Patmos,  a  seer  of  visions 
denied  to  the  robust,  ever  fleshly  Tolstoy.  His 
influence  on  Tolstoy  was  more  than  Stendhal's 
—  Stendhal  whom  Tolstoy  called  his  master. 

Tolstoy  denies  life,  even  hates  it  after  having 
enjoyed  it  to  the  full.  His  religion  in  the  last 
analysis  is  nihilism,  and  if  carried  to  its  logical 
conclusion  would  turn  the  civilised  world  into 
a  desert.  Our  great  man,  after  his  family  was 
in  bed,  sometimes  ate  forbidden  slices  of  beef, 
and  he  had  been  seen  enjoying  a  sly  cigarette, 
all  of  which  should  endear  him  to  us,  for  it 
proves  his  unquenchable  humanity.  Yet  that 
roast-beef  sandwich  shook  the  faith  of  thou 
sands.  No  —  it  will  not  do  to  take  Tolstoy 
seriously  in  his  attempts  at  evolving  a  parody 

74 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND    TOLSTOY 

of  early  Christianity.  He  is  doubtlessly  sincere, 
but  sincerity  is  often  the  cloak  for  a  multitude 
of  errors. 

His  Katusha  —  Maslova,  as  she  is  more  fa 
miliarly  known  in  Resurrection  —  is  a  far  less 
appealing  figure  than  the  street- walker  Sonia  in 
Dostoievsky's  Crime  and  Punishment.  The 
latter  lives,  while  poor  Maslova,  a  crude  sil 
houette  in  comparison,  as  soon  as  she  begins 
the  march  to  Siberia  is  transformed  into  a 
clothes-horse  upon  which  Tolstoy  drapes  his 
moral  platitudes.  She  is  at  first  much  more 
vital  than  her  betrayer,  who  is  an  unreal  bundle 
of  theories;  but  in  company  with  the  rest  of 
the  characters  she  soon  goes  up  in  metaphys 
ical  smoke.  Walizewski  asserts  that  all  Tol 
stoy's  later  life  was  a  regrettable  pose.  "But 
this  is  the  usual  price  of  every  kind  of  human 
greatness,  and  in  the  case  of  this  very  great 
man,  it  is  an  atavistic  feature  of  the  national 
.  .  .  education,  which  in  his  case  was  originally 
of  the  most  hasty  and  superficial  description." 

In  As  the  Hague  Ordains,  the  anonymous  au 
thor  attacks  "our  great  reformer  and  humbug," 
Count  Leo  Tolstoy.  She  claims  that  there  was 
hardly  a  village  in  China  so  abounding  in  filth 
and  ignorance  as  the  Tula  village  of  Yasnaya 
Polyana,  beside  Tolstoy's  country  home. 

"I  wonder,"  she  writes,  "why  the  procession 
of  foreign  visitors  who  go  to  Yasnaya  Polyana, 
who  lavish  adulation  and  hysterical  praises  upon 
that  crass  socialist  and  mischief-maker  of  his 

75 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND    TOLSTOY 

day,  never  think  to  look  around  them  and  use 
their  reasoning  powers.  Would  it  not  be  the 
logical  thing  for  Yasnaya  Polyana  to  be  the 
model  village  of  Russia?  Something  cleaner 
than  Edam  or  Marken  ?  A  little  of  his  magnif 
icent  humanitarianism  and  benevolence  poured 
upon  that  unsanitary  village  on  his  own  estate 
would  be  more  practical,  it  seems  to  me,  than 
the  thin  treacle  of  it  spread  over  the  whole 
universe.  Talk  is  cheap  in  Yasnaya  Polyana, 
and  the  Grand  Poseur  plays  his  part  magnifi 
cently.  Every  visitor  goes  away  completely 
hypnotised,  especially  the  Americans,  with  their 
frothing  about  equality  and  the  universal  broth 
erhood  of  man.  Universal  grandmother !  All 
men  are  just  as  equal  as  all  noses  or  all  mouths 
are  equal.  The  world  gets  older,  but  learns 
nothing,  and  it  cherishes  delusions,  and  the 
same  ones,  just  as  it  did  in  the  time  of  the 
Greek  philosophers.  Leo  Tolstoy  might  well 
have  lived  in  a  tub  or  carried  a  lantern  by 
day,  like  the  most  sensational  and  theatrical  of 
the  ancients.  He  is  only  a  past  master  of  re 
clame,  of  the  art  of  advertising.  The  Moujik 
blouse  and  those  delightful  tableaux  of  a  real 
nobleman  shoemaking  and  haymaking  make 
his  books  sell.  That  is  all.  And,  under  the  un 
suspecting  blouse  of  the  humanitarian  is  the 
fine  and  perfumed  linen  of  the  dandy.  Leo 
Tolstoy,  the  Beau  Brummel  of  his  corps  in 
my  father's  day  —  the  dandy  in  domino  to 
day." 

76 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND    TOLSTOY 

III 

Tolstoy  the  artist!  When  his  vagaries  are 
forgotten,  when  all  his  books  are  rags,  when 
his  very  name  shall  be  a  vague  memory,  there 
will  live  the  portrait  of  Anna  Karenina.  How 
dwarfed  are  his  other  achievements  compared 
with  the  creation  of  this  woman,  and  to  create 
a  living  character  is  to  be  as  the  gods.  Tol 
stoy  has  painted  one  of  the  three  women  in  the 
fiction  of  the  nineteenth  century.  If  the  roll- 
call  of  the  century  is  ever  sounded,  these  three 
women  shall  have  endured  "the  drums  and 
tramplings"  of  many  conquests,  and  the  con 
tiguous  dust  of  those  fictional  creatures  not 
built  for  immortality.  Balzac's  Valerie  Mar- 
neffe,  the  Emma  Bo  vary  of  Flaubert,  and  the 
Russian's  Anna  Karenina  are  these  daughters 
of  earth  —  flesh  and  blood,  tears  and  lust,  and 
the  pride  of  life  that  killeth. 

Despite  Tolstoy's  religious  mania,  I  have 
never  doubted  his  sincerity  for  a  moment.  It 
is  a  mysterious  yet  potent  factor  in  the  psy 
chology  of  such  an  artist  as  he  that  whatever 
he  did  he  did  with  tremendous  sincerity.  That 
is  the  reason  his  fiction  is  nearer  reality  than  all 
other  fictions,  and  the  reason,  too,  that  his 
realities,  i.  e.,  his  declarations  of  faith,  are 
nearer  other  men's  fictions.  When  he  writes 
of  his  conversion,  like  John  Bunyan,  he  lets 
you  see  across  the  very  sill  of  his  soul.  And 
he  does  it  artistically.  He  is  not  conscious  that 

77 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND    TOLSTOY 

art  enters  into  the  mechanism  of  this  spiritual 
evisceration;  but  it  does.  St.  Augustine,  John 
Bunyan,  John  Henry  Newman  wrote  of  their 
adventures  of  the  spirit  in  letters  of  fire,  and  in 
all  three  there  is  a  touch  of  the  sublime  nai 
vete  of  childhood's  outpourings. 

I  agree  with  the  estimate  of  Tolstoy  by 
Merejkowski.  The  main  points  of  this  study 
have  been  known  to  students  who  followed 
Tolstoy's  extraordinary  career  for  the  past 
quarter  of  a  century.  Ibsen's  individualism 
appeals.  Better  his  torpedo  exploding  a  thou 
sand  times  under  the  social  ark  than  the  Ori 
ental  passivity  of  the  Russian.  There  is  hope 
in  the  message  of  Brand;  none  in  Tolstoy's  ni 
hilism.  One  glorifies  the  will,  the  other  denies, 
rejects  it.  No  comparison  can  be  made  be 
tween  the  two  wonderful  men  as  playwrights. 
Yet  Tolstoy's  Powers  of  Darkness  is  brutal  melo 
drama  when  compared  to  Ibsen's  complex  dra 
matic  organisms.  But  what  a  nerve-shattering 
revelation  is  The  Death  of  Ivan  Ilyitch.  This 
is  the  real  Tolstoy. 

How  amateurish  is  the  attitude  of  the  Tol 
stoy  disciple  who  cavils  at  his  masterpieces. 
What  is  mere  art  compared  to  the  message! 
And  I  say:  what  are  all  his  vapourings  and 
fatidical  croonings  on  the  tripod  of  pseudo- 
prophecy  as  compared  to  Anna  Karenina? 
There  is  implicit  drama,  implicit  morality  in 
its  noble  pages,  and  a  segment  of  the  life  of 
a  nation  in  War  and  Peace.  With  preachers 

78 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND    TOLSTOY 

and  saviours  with  quack  nostrums  the  world  is 
already  well  stocked.  Great  artists  are  rare. 
Every  day  a  new  religion  is  born  somewhere  — 
and  it  always  finds  followers.  But  art  endures, 
it  outlives  dynasties,  religions,  divinities.  It  is 
with  Tolstoy  the  artist  we  are  enamoured.  He 
may  deliver  his  message  of  warning  to  a  care 
less  world  —  which  only  pricks  up  its  ears  when 
that  message  takes  on  questionable  colour,  as  in 
the  unpalatable  Kreutzer  Sonata.  (Yes;  that 
was  eagerly  devoured  for  its  morbid  eroticism.) 
We  prefer  the  austerer  Ibsen,  who  presents  his 
men  and  women  within  the  frame  of  the  drama, 
absolutely  without  personal  comment  or  parti 
pris  —  as  before  his  decadence  did  Tolstoy  in 
his  novels.  Ibsen  is  the  type  of  the  philosoph 
ical  anarch,  the  believer  in  man's  individuality, 
in  the  state  for  the  individual,  not  the  indi 
vidual  for  the  state.  It  is  at  least  more  digni 
fied  than  the  other's  flood  of  confessions,  of 
hysterical  self-accusations,  of  penitential  vows, 
and  abundant  lack  of  restraint.  Yet  no  one 
doubts  Tolstoy's  repentance.  Like  Verlaine's 
it  carried  with  it  its  own  proofs. 

But  why  publish  to  the  world  these  intimate 
soul  processes,  fascinating  as  they  are  to  lay 
men  and  psychologists  alike?  Why  not  keep 
watch  with  his  God  in  silence  and  alone?  The 
reason  was  (only  complicated  with  a  thousand 
other  things,  for  Tolstoy  was  a  complex  being 
and  a  Slav),  the  plain  reason  was,  we  repeat, 
because  Leo  Nikolaievitch  was  an  artist.  He 

79 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND    TOLSTOY 

obeyed  that  demon  known  to  Socrates  and 
Goethe,  and  minutely  recorded  his  mental  and 
emotional  fluctuations.  And  with  Richard  Wag 
ner  and  Dostoievsky,  Tolstoy  is  one  of  the  three 
most  emotional  temperaments  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  Unlike  Ibsen  or  Nietzsche,  he  does  not 
belong  to  the  twentieth  century;  his  religion, 
his  social  doctrines  are  atavistic,  are  of  the 
past.  Tolstoy  is  what  the  French  call  un  cere 
bral,  which,  as  Arthur  Symons  points  out,  is 
by  no  means  a  man  of  intellect.  "  Un  cerebral 
is  a  man  who  feels  through  his  brain,  in  whom 
emotion  transforms  itself  into  idea,  rather  than 
in  whom  idea  is  transformed  by  emotion."  How 
well  that  phrase  fits  Tolstoy  —  the  fever  of  the 
soul !  He  has  had  the  fever  of  the  soul,  has 
subdued  it,  and  his  recital  of  his  struggles  makes 
breathless  reading.  They  are  depicted  by  an 
artist,  an  emotional  artist,  and,  despite  his  prot 
estations,  by  one  who  will  die  an  artist  and 
be  remembered,  not  as  the  pontiff  of  a  new 
dispensation,  but  as  a  great  world  artist. 

An  admirer  has  said  of  him  that  "confession 
has  become  his  second  nature";  rather  it  was 
a  psychological  necessity.  The  voice  that  cried 
from  the  comfortable  wilderness  of  Yasnaya 
Polyana  furnished  unique  "copy"  for  news 
papers.  Alas !  the  pity  of  it  all.  The  moral 
dyspepsia  that  overtook  Carlyle  in  middle  life 
was  the  result  of  a  lean,  spoiled,  half-starved 
youth;  the  moral  dyspepsia  that  seized  the  soul 
of  the  wonderful  Tolstoy  was  the  outcome  of  a 
riotous  youth,  a  youth  overflowing  with  the 
80 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND    TOLSTOY 

"joy  of  life."  Ibsen,  like  Carlyle,  battled  in 
his  early  days  with  poverty;  but  his  message  — 
if  you  will  have  a  definite  message  (Oh,  these 
literal,  unimaginative  folk  of  the  Gradgrind  sort, 
who  would  wring  from  the  dumb  mysterious 
beauty  of  nature  definite  meanings  —  as  if  sheer 
existence  itself  is  not  its  own  glorious  vindica 
tion  !)  —  may  be  a  hopeful  one.  The  individual 
is  all  in  all;  he  is  the  evangel  of  the  future; 
his  belief  is  buoyant  and  Northern;  whereas 
Tolstoy's  sour  outlook,  his  constant  girding  at 
the  vanities  of  life  (after  he  had,  Solomon-like, 
tasted  of  them  to  the  full)  is  Eastern;  his  is 
the  Oriental  fatalism,  the  hopeless  doctrine  of 
determinism.  He  discovers  a  new  sin  every 
day.  Better  one  hour  of  Nietzsche's  dancing 
madness  than  a  cycle  of  Tolstoy's  pessimistic 
renunciations.  And  all  his  ethical  propaganda 
does  not  shake  in  the  least  our  conviction  of 
the  truth  and  grandeur  of  Tolstoy's  art. 

Of  the  disciples  the  son  of  Tolstoy,  Count 
Ilya,  tells  us  in  no  uncertain  accents: 

My  father  had  good  reason  for  saying  that 
the  "  Tolstoyites "  were  to  him  the  most  incom 
prehensible  sect  and  the  furthest  removed  from 
his  way  of  thinking  that  he  had  ever  come 
across.  "I  shall  soon  be  dead,"  he  sadly  pre 
dicted,  "and  people  will  say  that  Tolstoy  taught 
men  to  plough  and  reap  and  make  boots;  while 
the  chief  thing  that  I  have  been  trying  so  hard 
to  say  all  my  life,  the  thing  I  believe  in  the 
most  important  of  all,  they  will  forget." 
81 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND    TOLSTOY 

IV 
THE  YOUNGER  CHOIR 

Let  us  believe  that  Gogol,  Pushkin,  Ler- 
montov,  Nekrasov,  Dostoievsky,  Turgenieff,  and 
Tolstoy  are  classics.  As  long  as  Russian,  sono 
rous  and  beautiful  tongue,  is  spoken,  they  will 
never  die.  And  their  successors?  What  is  the 
actual  condition  of  Russian  literature  at  the 
present  time?  It  is  the  bare  truth  to  say  that 
a  period  of  stagnation  set  in  during  the  decade 
after  Turgenieff's  death.  Emigration  carried 
with  it  the  best  brains  of  the  land.  We  need 
not  dwell  upon  the  publicists,  nor  yet  stir  the 
muddy  stream  of  agitation.  It  has  been  the  mis 
fortune  of  Russian  literary  men  to  be  involved 
in  dangerous  political  schisms  and  revolutionary 
movements;  their  misfortune,  and  perhaps  their 
good  luck.  For  dramatic  material  they  have 
never  been  at  a  loss,  though  their  art  has  suf 
fered,  and  depth  of  feeling  has  been  gained  at  a 
sad  waste  of  other  qualities.  That  grand  old 
humourist  Gogol  has  had  no  successors.  Hu 
mour  in  Russia  is  a  suspected  thing.  Even  if 
there  were  a  second  Gogol  he  would  never  be 
allowed  to  put  on  the  boards  a  second  Re- 
vizor.  We  do  not  mean  to  assert  that  humour 
has  died  out  altogether  in  literature,  but  it  is 
not  the  special  gift  of  those  who  write  nowadays. 
Since  Gogol  or  coeval  with  him,  only  men  of 
secondary  importance  have  been  humourists: 
Uspenski,  Ostrovski,  Saltykov  (Chtchedrine),  or 
82 


DOSTOIEVSKY   AND    TOLSTOY 

the  author  of  the  novel  Oblomov,  Gontcharov 
by  name. 

Maikov,  Nadsohn,  Polonski,  Garchin,  Kor- 
olenko,  Tchekov  were  all  men  of  talent;  the 
last  in  particular,  preceptor  and  friend  to 
Gorky  in  his  days  of  want,  was  a  novelist  of 
high  artistic  if  morbid  powers.  He  is  dead. 
It  is  when  we  turn  to  the  living  that  we  real 
ise  what  a  flatland  is  Russian  literature  now. 
A  writer  and  critic,  Madame  Z.  Hippius,  at 
tempted  in  the  Paris  Mercure  de  France  to  give 
an  idea  of  the  situation.  She  admitted  the  in 
adequacy  of  her  sketch.  The  troubled  political 
map  of  Russia  has  not  been  conducive  to  ripe 
artistic  production.  As  she  says,  even  the  writ 
ers  who  refused  to  meddle  with  politics  are 
marked  men;  politics  in  the  shape  of  the  se 
cret  police  comes  to  them.  Madame  Hippius 
makes  the  assertion  that  literature  in  Russian 
has  never  existed  in  the  sense  of  a  literary 
milieu,  as  an  organic  art  possessing  traditions 
and  continuity;  for  her,  Tolstoy,  Dostoievsky, 
and  Turgenieff  are  but  isolated  men  of  genius. 
A  glance  back  at  the  times  and  writings  of  such 
critics  as  Bielinski,  Dobroliubov,  and  Nekra- 
sov  —  a  remarkable  poet  —  disproves  this  state 
ment.  Without  a  Gogol  the  later  novelists 
would  be  rather  in  the  air.  He  first  fashioned 
the  bricks  and  mortar  of  native  fiction.  Read 
Kropotkin,  Osip-Luri,  E.  Semenov,  Walizewski, 
Melchior  de  Vogue,  and  Leo  Wiener  if  you  doubt 
the  wealth  and  variety  of  this  literature. 

83 


Among  living  prose  writers  two  names  are 
encountered:  Maxim  Gorky  and  Leonide  An- 
dreiev.  Of  the  neurotic  Gorky  there  is  naught 
to  be  said  that  is  encouraging.  He  was  physi 
cally  ill  when  in  America  and  as  an  artist  in 
plain  decadence.  He  had  shot  his  bolt  in  his 
tales  about  his  beloved  vagabonds.  He  had 
not  the  long-breathed  patience  or  artistic  skill 
for  a  novel.  His  novels,  disfigured  by  tirades 
and  dry  attempts  at  philosophical  excursions,  are 
all  failures.  When  his  tramps  begin  to  spout 
Nietzsche  on  their  steppes  the  artificial  note  is 
too  apparent.  His  plays  are  loose  episodes  with 
out  dramatic  action  or  climax,  sometimes  mov 
ing,  as  in  the  case  of  Nachtasyl,  and  discordant 
in  The  Children  of  the  Sun.  Gorky  had  a  nat 
ural  talent;  in  his  stories  a  submerged  genera 
tion  became  eloquent.  And  he  became  a  doc 
trinaire.  Nietzsche  finished  the  ruin  that  Marx 
had  begun;  his  art,  chiefly  derived  from  Dos 
toievsky  and  Tchekov,  succumbed  to  a  senti 
mental  socialism. 

Andreiev  is  still  strong,  though  enveloped  in 
" mystic  anarchism."  He  is  as  naturally  gifted 
as  Gorky  and  a  thinker  of  more  precision.  His 
play,  Les  Tenebres,  reveals  the  influences  of 
Dostoievsky  and  Tolstoy.  It  is  a  shocking  ar 
raignment  of  self-satisfied  materialism.  A  young- 
revolutionary  is  the  protagonist.  The  woman 
in  the  case  belongs  to  the  same  profession  as 
Dostoievsky's  Sonia.  Not  encouraging,  this. 
Yet  high  hopes  are  centred  upon  Andreiev. 

84 


DOSTOIEVSKY  AND  TOLSTOY 

For  the  rest  there  is  Vladimir  Soloviev,  who  is 
a  poet-metaphysician  with  a  following.  He  has 
mystic  proclivities.  Scratch  a  Russian  writer 
and  you  come  upon  a  mystic.  He  is  against 
clericalism  and  believes  in  an  "anti-clerical 
church"!  There  is  a  little  circle  at  Moscow, 
where  a  Muscovite  review,  La  Balance  (founded 
1903),  is  the  centre  of  the  young  men.  V.  Brus- 
off,  a  poet,  is  the  editor.  Balmont  and  Sologub 
write  for  its  pages,  as  do  Rosanow  and  Merej- 
kowski.  In  1898  there  was  a  review  started 
called  Mir  Iskousstva.  Its  director  was  Serge 
Diaghilev,  and  it  endured  until  1904.  Sologub 
is  one  of  the  most  promising  poets.  Block, 
Remisov,  Ivanov  are  also  poets  of  much  ability. 
There  are  romancers  such  as  Zensky,  Kuzmin, 
Ivanov,  Ropshin,  Chapygin,  Serafimovitch,  Zait- 
zeff,  Volnoff;  some  of  these  wrote  on  risky 
themes.  But  when  the  works  of  these  new 
writers  are  closely  scrutinised  their  lack  of  orig 
inality  and  poverty  of  invention  are  noticeable. 
The  " poisonous  honey"  of  French  decadents 
and  symbolists  has  attracted  one  party;  and 
the  others  are  being  swallowed  up  in  the  pes 
simistic  nebula  of  "mystic  anarchy"  and  fa 
talism.  "Russian  pity"  suffuses  their  work. 
There  is  without  doubt  a  national  sentiment 
and  a  revolt  against  western  European  culture, 
particularly  the  French.  Russia  for  the  Rus 
sians  is  the  slogan  of  this  group.  But  thus  far 
nothing  in  particular  has  come  of  their  patri 
otic  efforts;  no  overwhelming  personality  has 

85 


DOSTOIEVSKY  AND  TOLSTOY 

emerged  from  the  rebellious  froth  of  new  theo 
ries.  If  ever  the  "man  on  horseback"  does 
appear  in  Russia,  it  is  very  doubtful  if  he  will  be 
stride  a  Pegasus. 

Of  bigger  and  sterner  calibre  than  any  of  the 
productions  of  the  others  is  Sanine,  a  novel  by 
Michael  Artzibaschev,  that  is  being  widely  read 
not  only  in  Russia  but  in  all  the  world.  It 
was  written  as  long  ago  as  1903  the  author  tells 
us.  He  is  of  Tartar  origin,  born  1878,  of  par 
ents  in  whose  veins  flowed  Russian,  French, 
Georgian,  and  Polish  blood.  He  is  of  humble 
origin,  as  is  Gorky,  and  being  of  a  consump 
tive  tendency,  he  lives  in  the  Crimea.  He  be 
gan  as  a  journalist.  His  photograph  reveals  him 
as  a  young  man  of  a  fine,  sensitive  type,  truly 
an  apostle  of  pity  and  pain.  He  passionately  es 
pouses  the  cause  of  the  poor  and  downtrodden,  as 
his  extraordinary  revolutionary  short  stories  — 
The  Millionaire  among  the  rest  —  show.  Since 
TurgeniefPs  Fathers  and  Sons,  no  tale  like 
Metal  Worker  Schevyrjow  has  appeared  in 
European  literature.  In  it  the  bedrock  of  Sla 
vic  fatalism,  an  anarchistic  pessimism  is  reached. 
It  has  been  done  into  French  by  Jacques  Povo- 
lozky.  The  Russian  author  reveals  plentiful 
traces  of  Tolstoy,  Turgenieff,  Dostoievsky,  and 
Gorky  in  his  pages;  Tchekov,  too,  is  not  absent. 
But  the  new  note  is  the  influence  of  Max  Stirner. 
Michael  Artzibaschev  calmly  grafts  the  disparate 
ideas  of  Dostoievsky  and  Max  Stirner  in  his  San 
ine,  and  the  result  is  a  hero  who  is  at  once  a  su- 
86 


DOSTOIEVSKY  AND  TOLSTOY 

perman  and  a  scoundrel  —  or  are  the  two  fairly 
synonymous  ?  This  clear-eyed,  broad-shouldered 
Sanine  passes  through  the  little  town  where  he 
was  born,  leaving  behind  him  a  trail  of  mis 
haps  and  mistortunes.  He  is  depicted  with  a 
marvellous  art,  though  it  is  impossible  to  sym 
pathise  with  him.  He  upsets  a  love-affair  of 
his  sister's,  he  quarrels  with  and  insults  her  lover, 
who  commits  suicide;  he  also  drives  to  self- 
destruction  a  wretched  little  Hebrew  who  has 
become  a  freethinker  and  can't  stand  the  strain 
of  his  apostasy;  he  is  the  remote  cause  of  an 
other  suicide,  that  of  a  weakling,  a  student  full 
of  "modern"  ideas,  but  whose  will  is  quite 
sapped.  Turgenieff's  Fathers  and  Sons  is  re 
called  more  than  once,  especially  the  character 
of  Bazarov,  the  nihilist.  Furthermore,  when  this 
student  fails  to  reap  the  benefit  of  a  good  girl's 
love,  Sanine  steps  in  and  ruins  her.  Even  in 
cest  is  hinted  at.  All  this  sounds  incredible  in 
our  bare  recital,  but  in  the  flow  and  glow  of 
the  richly  coloured  narrative  everything  is  plau 
sible,  nay,  of  the  stuff  of  life.  As  realists  the 
Russians  easily  lead  all  other  nations  in  fiction. 
There  are  descriptions  of  woodlands  that  recall 
a  little  scene  from  Turgenieff's  Sportsman's 
Sketches;  there  are  episodes,  such  as  the  bac 
chanal  in  the  monastery,  a  moonlit  ride  in  the 
canoe  with  a  realistic  seduction  episode,  and 
the  several  quarrels  that  would  have  pleased 
both  Tolstoy  and  Dostoievsky;  there  is  an  old 
mujik  who  seems  to  have  stepped  out  of  Dos- 

87 


DOSTOIEVSKY  AND  TOLSTOY 

toievsky,  yet  is  evidently  a  portrait  taken  from 
life.  The  weak  mother,  the  passionate  sister, 
the  sweet  womanly  quality  of  the  deceived  girl, 
these  are  portraits  worthy  of  a  master.  Sanine 
is  not  the  Rogoszin,  and  his  sister  is  not  the 
Nastasia  Philipovna,  of  Dostoievsky's  The  Idiot; 
for  all  that  they  are  distinct  and  worthy  additions 
to  the  vast  picture-gallery  of  Russian  fiction. 

Sanine  himself  hardly  appeals  to  our  novel 
readers,  for  whom  a  golf-stick  and  a  motor-car 
are  symbols  of  the  true  hero.  In  a  word,  he 
is  real  flesh  and  blood.  He  goes  as  mysteriously 
as  he  came.  The  novel  that  followed,  Breaking 
Point,  is  a  lugubrious  orgy  of  death  and  erotic 
madness,  a  symphony  of  suicide  and  love  and  the 
disgust  of  life.  Artzibaschev  is  now  in  English 
garb.  Thus  far  Sanine  is  his  masterpiece. 


88 


V 

ARNOLD  SCHOENBERG 


Two  decades  ago,  more  or  less,  John  M. 
Robertson  published  several  volumes  chiefly  con 
cerned  with  the  gentle  art  of  criticism.  Mr. 
Robertson  introduced  to  the  English-reading 
world  the  critical  theories  of  Emile  Hennequin, 
whose  essays  on  Poe,  Dostoievsky,  and  Tur- 
genieff  may  be  remembered.  It  is  a  cardinal 
doctrine  of  Hennequin  and  Robertson  that,  as 
the  personal  element  plays  the  chief  r61e  in 
everything  the  critic  writes,  he  himself  should 
be  the  first  to  submit  to  a  grilling;  in  a  word, 
to  be  put  through  his  paces  and  tell  us  in  ad 
vance  of  his  likes  and  dislikes,  his  prejudices 
and  passions.  Naturally,  it  doesn't  take  long 
to  discover  the  particular  bias  of  a  critic's 
mind.  He  writes  himself  down  whenever  he 
puts  pen  to  paper. 

For  instance,  there  is  the  historic  duel  be 
tween  Anatole  France,  a  free-lance  among  critics, 
and  Ferdinand  Brunetiere,  intrenched  behind 
the  bastions  of  tradition,  not  to  mention  the 
Revue  des  Deux  Mondes.  That  discussion,  while 
amusing,  was  so  much  threshing  of  academic 

89 


ARNOLD  SCHOENBERG 

straw.  M.  France  disclaimed  all  authority  — 
he,  most  erudite  among  critics;  M.  Brunetiere 
praised  impersonality  in  criticism  —  he,  the  most 
personal  among  writers  —  not  a  pleasing  or  ex 
pansive  personality,  be  it  understood;  but,  nar 
row  as  he  was,  his  personality  shone  out  from 
every  page. 

Now,  says  Mr.  Robertson,  why  not  ask  ev 
ery  critic  about  to  bring  forth  an  opinion  for  a 
sort  of  chart  on  which  will  be  shown  his  vari 
ous  qualities  of  mind,  character;  yes,  and  even 
his  physical  temperament;  whether  sanguine  or 
melancholic,  bilious  or  eupeptic,  young  or  old, 
peaceful  or  truculent;  also  his  tastes  in  litera 
ture,  art,  music,  politics,  and  religion.  This  re 
minds  one  of  an  old-fashioned  game.  And  all 
this  long-winded  preamble  is  to  tell  you  that 
the  case  of  Arnold  Schoenberg,  musical  an 
archist,  and  an  Austrian  composer  who  has  at 
once  aroused  the  ire  and  admiration  of  musical 
Germany,  demands  just  such  a  confession  from 
a  critic  about  to  hold  in  the  balance  the  music 
or  unmusic  (the  Germans  have  such  a  handy 
word)  of  Schoenberg.  Therefore,  before  I  at 
tempt  a  critical  or  uncritical  valuation  of  the 
art  of  Arnold  Schoenberg  let  me  make  a  clean 
breast  of  my  prejudices  in  the  manner  suggested 
by  Hennequin  and  Robertson.  Besides,  it  is  a 
holy  and  unwholesome  idea  to  purge  the  mind 
every  now  and  then. 

First:  I  place  pure  music  above  impure,  i.  e., 
instrumental  above  mixed.  I  dislike  grand 
90 


ARNOLD  SCHOENBERG 

opera  as  a  miserable  mishmash  of  styles,  com 
promises,  and  arrant  ugliness.  The  moment 
the  human  voice  intrudes  in  an  orchestral  work, 
my  dream-world  of  music  vanishes.  Mother 
Church  is  right  in  banishing  from  within  the 
walls  of  her  temples  the  female  voice.  The 
world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil  lurk  in  the  lar 
ynx  of  the  soprano  or  alto,  and  her  place  is 
before  the  footlights,  not  as  a  vocal  staircase 
to  paradise.  I  say  this,  knowing  in  my  heart 
that  nothing  is  so  thrilling  as  Tristan  and  Isolde, 
and  my  memory-cells  hold  marvellous  pictures 
of  Lilli  Lehmann,  Milka  Ternina,  and  Olive 
Fremstad.  So,  I'm  neither  logical  nor  sincere; 
nevertheless,  I  maintain  the  opinion  that  abso 
lute  music,  not  programme,  not  music-drama,  is 
the  apogee  of  the  art.  A  Beethoven  string 
quartet  holds  more  genuine  music  for  me  than 
the  entire  works  of  Wagner.  There's  a  preju 
diced  statement  for  you ! 

Second:  I  fear  and  dislike  the  music  of  Ar 
nold  Schoenberg,  who  may  be  called  the  Max 
Stirner  of  music.  Now,  the  field  being  cleared, 
let  us  see  what  the  music  of  the  new  man  is 
like.  Certainly,  he  is  the  hardest  musical  nut 
to  crack  of  his  generation,  and  the  shell  is  very 
bitter  in  the  mouth. 

Early  in  December,  1912,  the  fourth  perfor 
mance  of  a  curious  composition  by  Schoenberg 
was  given  at  the  Choralionsaal  in  the  Bellevue- 
strasse,  Berlin.  The  work  is  entitled  Lieder 
des  Pierrot  Lunaire,  the  text  of  which  is  a 


ARNOLD  SCHOENBERG 

fairly  good  translation  of  a  poem  cycle  by  Al 
bert  Guiraud.  This  translation  was  made  by 
the  late  Otto  Erich  Hartleben,  himself  a  poet 
and  dramatist.  I  have  not  read  the  original 
French  verse,  but  the  idea  seems  to  be  faith 
fully  represented  in  the  German  version.  This 
moon-stricken  Pierrot  chants  —  rather  declaims 
—  his  woes  and  occasional  joys  to  the  music  of 
the  Viennese  composer,  whose  score  requires  a 
reciter  (female),  a  piano,  flute  (also  piccolo), 
clarinet  (also  bass  clarinet),  violin  (also  viola), 
and  violoncello.  The  piece  is  described  as  a 
melodrama.  I  listened  to  it  on  a  Sunday  morn 
ing,  and  I  confess  that  Sunday  at  noon  is  not 
a  time  propitious  to  the  mood  musical.  It  was 
also  the  first  time  I  had  heard  a  note  of  Schoen- 
berg's.  In  vain  I  had  tried  to  get  some  of  his 
scores;  not  even  the  six  little  piano  pieces  could 
I  secure.  Instead,  my  inquiries  were  met  with 
dubious  or  pitying  smiles  —  your  music  clerk  is 
a  terrible  critic  betimes,  and  his  mind  oft  takes 
upon  it  the  colour  of  his  customer's  orders.  So 
there  I  was,  to  be  pitched  overboard  into  a  new 
sea,  to  sink  or  float,  and  all  the  while  wishing 
myself  miles  away. 

A  lady  of  pleasing  appearance,  attired  in  a 
mollified  Pierrot  costume,  stood  before  some 
Japanese  screens  and  began  to  intone  —  to  can- 
tillate,  would  be  a  better  expression.  She  told 
of  a  monstrous  moon-drunken  world,  then  she 
described  Columbine,  a  dandy,  a  pale  washer 
woman —  "Eine  blasse  Wascherin  wascht  zur 
92 


ARNOLD   SCHOENBERG 

Nachtzeit  bleiche  Tiicher"  —  and  always  with 
a  refrain,  for  Guiraud  employs  the  device  to  ex 
cess.  A  valse  of  Chopin  followed,  in  verse,  of 
course  (poor  suffering  Frederic !),  and  part  one 
—  there  are  seven  poems,  each  in  three  sec 
tions  —  ended  with  one  entitled  Madonna,  and 
another,  the  Sick  Moon.  The  musicians  were 
concealed  behind  the  screens  (dear  old  Mark 
Twain  would  have  said,  to  escape  the  outraged 
audience) ,  but  we  heard  them  only  too  clearly ! 

It  is  the  decomposition  of  the  art,  I  thought, 
as  I  held  myself  in  my  seat.  Of  course,  I  meant 
decomposition  of  tones,  as  the  slang  of  the 
ateliers  goes. 

What  did  I  hear?  At  first,  the  sound  of 
delicate  china  shivering  into  a  thousand  lumi 
nous  fragments.  In  the  welter  of  tonalities  that 
bruised  each  other  as  they  passed  and  repassed, 
in  the  preliminary  grip  of  enharmonics  that  al 
most  made  the  ears  bleed,  the  eyes  water,  the 
scalp  to  freeze,  I  could  not  get  a  central  grip 
on  myself.  It  was  new  music  (or  new  exquis 
itely  horrible  sounds)  with  a  vengeance.  The 
very  ecstasy  of  the  hideous !  I  say  "exquisitely 
horrible,"  for  pain  can  be  at  once  exquisite  and 
horrible;  consider  toothache  and  its  first  cousin, 
neuralgia.  And  the  border-land  between  pain 
and  pleasure  is  a  territory  hitherto  unexplored 
by  musical  composers.  Wagner  suggests  poetic 
anguish;  Schoenberg  not  only  arouses  the  image 
of  anguish,  but  he  brings  it  home  to  his  au 
ditory  in  the  most  subjective  way.  You  suf- 

93 


ARNOLD   SCHOENBERG 

fer  the  anguish  with  the  fictitious  character  in 
the  poem.  Your  nerves  —  and  remember  the 
porches  of  the  ears  are  the  gateways  to  the 
brain  and  ganglionic  centres  —  are  literally 
pinched  and  scraped. 

I  wondered  that  morning  if  I  were  not  in  a 
nervous  condition.  I  looked  about  me  in  the 
sparsely  filled  hall.  People  didn't  wriggle;  per 
haps  their  souls  wriggled.  They  neither  smiled 
nor  wept.  Yet  on  the  wharf  of  hell  the  lost  souls 
disembarked  and  wept  and  lamented.  What 
was  the  matter  with  my  own  ego?  My  con 
science  reported  a  clean  bill  of  health,  I  had 
gone  to  bed  early  the  previous  night  wishing 
to  prepare  for  the  ordeal.  Evidently  I  was  out 
of  condition  (critics  are  like  prize-fighters,  they 
must  keep  in  constant  training  else  they  go 
' '  stale  ") .  Or  was  the  music  to  blame  ?  Schoen- 
berg  is,  I  said  to  myself,  the  crudest  of  all  com 
posers,  for  he  mingles  with  his  music,  sharp  dag 
gers  at  white  heat,  with  which  he  pares  away 
tiny  slices  of  his  victim's  flesh.  Anon  he  twists 
the  knife  in  the  fresh  wound  and  you  receive 
another  horrible  thrill,  all  the  time  wondering 
over  the  fate  of  the  Lunar  Pierrot  and  —  hold 
on!  Here's  the  first  clew.  If  this  new  music 
is  so  distractingly  atrocious  what  right  has  a 
listener  to  bother  about  Pierrot?  What's  Pier 
rot  to  him  or  he  to  Pierrot?  Perhaps  Schoen- 
berg  had  caught  his  fish  in  the  musical  net  he 
used,  and  what  more  did  he  want,  or  what  more 
could  his  listeners  expect  ?  —  for  to  be  hooked 

94 


ARNOLD   SCHOENBERG 

or  netted  by  the  stronger  volition  of  an  artist 
is  the  object  of  all  the  seven  arts. 

How  does  Schoenberg  do  it?  How  does  he 
pull  off  the  trick?  It  is  not  a  question  to  be 
lightly  answered.  In  the  first  place  the  person 
ality  of  the  listener  is  bound  to  obtrude  itself; 
dissociation  from  one's  ego  —  if  such  a  thing 
were  possible  —  would  be  intellectual  death; 
only  by  the  clear,  persistent  image  of  ourselves 
do  we  exist  —  banal  psychology  as  old  as  the 
hills.  And  the  ear,  like  the  eye,  soon  "accom 
modates"  itself  to  new  perspectives  and  unre 
lated  harmonies. 

I  had  felt,  without  clearly  knowing  the  reason, 
that  when  Albertine  Zehme  so  eloquently  de 
claimed  the  lines  of  Madonna,  the  sixth  stanza 
of  part  one,  beginning  "Steig,  o  Mutter  aller 
Schmerzen,  auf  den  Altar  meiner  Tone!"  that 
the  background  of  poignant  noise  supplied  by 
the  composer  was  more  than  apposite,  and  in 
the  mood-key  of  the  poem.  The  flute,  bass 
clarinet,  and  violoncello  were  so  cleverly  han 
dled  that  the  colour  of  the  doleful  verse  was  en 
hanced,  the  mood  expanded;  perhaps  the  He 
braic  strain  in  the  composer's  blood  has  endowed 
him  with  the  gift  of  expressing  sorrow  and  deso 
lation  and  the  abomination  of  living.  How  far 
are  we  here  from  the  current  notion  that  music 
is  a  consoler,  is  joy-breeding,  or  should,  accord 
ing  to  the  Aristotelian  formula,  purge  the  soul 
through  pity  and  terror.  I  felt  the  terror,  but 
pity  was  absent.  Blood-red  clouds  swept  over 

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ARNOLD   SCHOENBERG 

vague  horizons.  It  was  a  new  land  through 
which  I  wandered.  And  so  it  went  on  to  the 
end,  and  I  noted  as  we  progressed  that  Schoen- 
berg,  despite  his  ugly  sounds,  was  master  of 
more  than  one  mood;  witness  the  shocking  cyn 
icism  of  the  gallows  song  Die  diirre  Dime 
mit  langen  Halse.  Such  music  is  shameful  — 
"and  that's  the  precise  effect  I  was  after"  — 
could  the  composer  triumphantly  answer,  and 
he  would  be  right.  What  kind  of  music  is  this, 
without  melody,  in  the  ordinary  sense;  without 
themes,  yet  every  acorn  of  a  phrase  contrapun- 
tally  developed  by  an  adept;  without  a  harmony 
that  does  not  smite  the  ears,  lacerate,  figura 
tively  speaking,  the  ear-drums ;  keys  forced  into 
hateful  marriage  that  are  miles  asunder,  or  else 
too  closely  related  for  aural  matrimony;  no 
form,  that  is,  in  the  scholastic  formal  sense,  and 
rhythms  that  are  so  persistently  varied  as  to 
become  monotonous  —  what  kind  of  music,  I 
repeat,  is  this  that  can  paint  a  "crystal  sigh," 
the  blackness  of  prehistoric  night,  the  abysm  of 
a  morbid  soul,  the  man  in  the  moon,  the  faint 
sweet  odours  of  an  impossible  fairy-land,  and  the 
strut  of  the  dandy  from  Bergamo?  (See  the 
Guiraud  poem.)  There  is  no  melodic  or  har 
monic  line,  only  a  series  of  points,  dots,  dashes, 
or  phrases  that  sob  and  scream,  despair,  ex 
plode,  exalt,  blaspheme. 

I  give   the   conundrum   the   go-by;    I   only 
know  that  when  I  finally  surrendered  myself 
to  the   composer  he  worked  his  will  on  my 
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ARNOLD   SCHOENBERG 

fancy  and  on  my  raw  nerves,  and  I  followed 
the  poems,  loathing  the  music  all  the  while, 
with  intense  interest.  Indeed,  I  couldn't  let  go 
the  skein  of  the  story  for  fear  that  I  might 
fall  off  somewhere  into  a  gloomy  chasm  and  be 
devoured  by  chromatic  wolves.  I  recalled  one 
extraordinary  moment  at  the  close  of  the  com 
position  when  a  simple  major  chord  was  sounded 
and  how  to  my  ears  it  had  a  supernal  beauty; 
after  the  perilous  tossing  and  pitching  on  a 
treacherous  sea  of  no-harmonies  it  was  like  a 
field  of  firm  ice  under  the  feet. 

I  told  myself  that  it  served  me  right,  that  I 
was  too  old  to  go  gallivanting  around  with  this 
younger  generation,  that  if  I  would  eat  prickly 
musical  pears  I  must  not  be  surprised  if  I  suf 
fered  from  aural  colic.  Nevertheless,  when  cer 
tain  of  the  Schoenberg  compositions  reached  me 
from  Vienna  I  eagerly  fell  to  studying  them. 
I  saw  then  that  he  had  adopted  as  his  motto: 
Evil,  be  thou  my  good !  And  that  a  man  who 
could  portray  in  tone  sheer  ugliness  with  such 
crystal  clearness  is  to  be  reckoned  with  in  these 
topsyturvy  times. 

I  have  called  Arnold  Schoenberg  a  musical 
anarchist,  using  the  word  in  its  best  estate  — • 
anarchos,  without  a  head.  Perhaps  he  is  a  su 
perman  also,  and  the  world  doesn't  know  it. 
His  admirers  and  pupils  think  so,  however,  and 
several  of  them  have  recorded  their  opinion  in 
a  little  book,  published  at  Munich,  1912,  by 
R.  Piper  &  Co. 

97 


ARNOLD  SCHOENBERG 

The  life  of  Arnold  Schoenberg,  its  outer  side, 
has  thus  far  been  uneventful,  though  doubtless 
rich  in  the  psychical  sense.  He  is  still  young, 
born  in  Vienna,  September  13,  1874.  He  lived 
there  till  1901,  then  in  the  December  of  that 
year  he  went  to  Berlin,  where  he  was  for  a 
short  time  conductor  in  Wolzogen's  Bunten  The 
atre,  and  also  teacher  of  composition  at  Stern's 
Conservatory.  In  1903  he  returned  to  Vienna, 
where  he  taught  —  he  is  pre-eminently  a  peda 
gogue,  even  pedantic  as  I  hope  to  presently 
prove  —  in  the  K.  K.  Akademie  fur  Musik.  In 
1911  Berlin  again  beckoned  to  him,  and  as  hope 
ever  burns  in  the  bosom  of  composers,  young 
and  old,  he  no  doubt  believes  that  his  day  will 
come.  Certainly,  his  disciples,  few  as  they  may 
be,  make  up  by  their  enthusiasm  for  the  public 
and  critical  flouting.  I  can't  help  recalling  the 
Italian  Futurists  when  I  think  of  Schoenberg. 
The  same  wrath  may  be  noted  in  the  galleries 
where  the  young  Italian  painters  exhibit.  So 
it  was  at  the  end  of  the  concert.  One  man,  a 
sane  person,  was  positively  purple  with  rage 
(evidently  he  had  paid  for  his  seat),  and  swore 
that  the  composer  was  verriickt. 

His  compositions  are  not  numerous.  Schoen 
berg  appears  to  be  a  reflective  rather  than  a 
spontaneous  creator.  Here  is  an  abridged  list: 
Opus  i,  2,  and  3  (composed,  1898-1900);  Opus 
4,  string  sextet,  which  bears  the  title,  Verklarte 
Nacht  (1899);  Gurrelieder,  after  J.  P.  Jacob- 
sen,  for  solos;  chorus  and  orchestra  (1900), 
98 


ARNOLD   SCHOENBERG 

published  in  the  Universal  Edition,  Vienna; 
Opus  5,  Pelleas  et  Melisande,  symphonic  poem 
for  orchestra  (1902),  Universal  Edition  afore 
said;  Opus  6,  eight  lieder  (about  1905);  Opus 
7,  E  string  quartet,  D  minor  (1905);  Opus  8, 
six  orchestral  lieder  (1904);  Opus  9,  Kammer- 
symphonie  (1906);  two  ballads  for  voice  and 
piano  (1907);  Peace  on  Earth,  mixed  chorus 
a  capella  (1908),  manuscript;  Opus  10,  II, 
string  quartet,  F-sharp  minor  (1907-8);  fif 
teen  lieder,  after  Stefan  George,  a  talented  Vien 
nese  poet,  one  of  the  Jung-Wien  group  (1908), 
manuscript;  Opus  u,  three  piano  pieces  (1908); 
five  pieces  for  orchestra  (1909)  in  the  Peters 
Edition;  monodrama,  Erwartung  (1909);  Gliick- 
liche  Hand,  drama  with  music,  text  by  composer, 
not  yet  finished  (1910);  and  six  piano  pieces 
(1911).  His  book  on  harmony  appeared  in  1910 
and  was  universally  treated  as  the  production  of 
a  madman,  and,  finally,  as  far  as  this  chronicle 
goes,  in  1911-12  he  finished  Pierrot  Lunaire, 
which  was  first  produced  in  Berlin. 

One  thing  is  certain,  and  this  hardly  need 
assure  my  musical  readers,  the  old  tonal  order 
has  changed  for  ever;  there  are  plenty  of  signs 
in  the  musical  firmament  to  prove  this.  Mous- 
sorgsky  preceded  Debussy  in  his  use  of  whole- 
tone  harmonies,  and  a  contemporary  of  Debussy, 
and  an  equally  gifted  musician,  Martin  Loef- 
fler,  was  experimenting  before  Debussy  himself 
in  a  dark  but  delectable  harmonic  region.  The 

99 


ARNOLD   SCHOENBERG 

tyranny  of  the  diatonic  and  chromatic  scales, 
the  tiresome  revolutions  of  the  major  and  minor 
modes,  the  critical  Canutes  who  sit  at  the  sea 
side  and  say  to  the  modern  waves:  Thus  far 
and  no  farther;  and  then  hastily  abandon  their 
chairs  and  rush  to  safety  else  be  overwhelmed, 
all  these  things  are  of  the  past,  whether  in  music, 
art,  literature,  and  —  let  Nietzsche  speak  —  in 
ethics.  Even  philoso  phyhas  become  a  plaything, 
and  logic  "a  dodge,"  as  Professor  Jowett  puts  it. 
Every  stronghold  is  being  assailed,  from  the 
"divine"  rights  of  property  to  the  common 
chord  of  C  major.  With  Schoenberg,  freedom 
in  modulation  is  not  only  permissible,  but  is 
an  iron  rule;  he  is  obsessed  by  the  theory  of 
overtones,  and  his  music  is  not  only  horizon 
tally  and  vertically  planned,  but,  so  I  pretend 
to  hear,  also  in  a  circular  fashion.  There  is  no 
such  thing  as  consonance  or  dissonance,  only 
imperfect  training  of  the  ear  (I  am  quoting 
from  his  Harmony,  certainly  a  bible  for  musi 
cal  supermen).  He  says:  "Harmonic  fremde 
Tone  gibt  es  also  nicht"  —  and  a  sly  dig  at 
the  old-timers  -  "  sondern  nur  dem  Harmonie- 
system  fremde."  After  carefully  listening  I 
noted  that  he  too  has  his  mannerisms,  that  in 
his  chaos  there  is  a  certain  order,  that  his  mad 
ness  is  very  methodical.  For  one  thing  he  abuses 
the  interval  of  the  fourth,  and  he  enjoys  jug 
gling  with  the  chord  of  the  ninth.  Vagabond 
harmonies,  in  which  the  remotest  keys  lovingly 
hold  hands,  do  not  prevent  the  sensation  of  a 
100 


ARNOLD  SCHOENBERG 

central  tonality  somewhere  —  in  the  cellar,  on 
the  roof,  in  the  gutter,  up  in  the  sky.  The 
inner  ear  tells  you  that  the  D-minor  quartet  is 
really  thought,  though  not  altogether  played,  in 
that  key.  As  for  form,  you  must  not  expect 
it  from  a  man  who  declares:  "I  decide  my 
form  during  composition  only  through  feeling." 
Every  chord  is  the  outcome  of  an  emotion,  the 
emotion  aroused  by  the  poem  or  idea  which 
gives  birth  to  the  composition.  Such  antique 
things  as  the  cyclic  form  or  community  of 
themes  are  not  to  be  expected  in  Schoenberg's 
bright  lexicon  of  anarchy.  He  boils  down  the 
classic  form  to  one  movement  and,  so  it  seemed 
to  my  hearing,  he  begins  developing  his  idea  as 
soon  as  it  is  announced. 

Such  polyphony,  such  interweaving  of  voices 
—  eleven  and  twelve  and  fifteen  are  a  matter 
of  course  —  as  would  make  envious  the  old  tonal 
weavers  of  the  Netherlands!  There  is,  literally, 
no  waste  ornament  or  filling  in  his  scores;  every 
theme,  every  subsidiary  figure,  is  set  spinning 
so  that  you  dream  of  fireworks  spouting  in  every 
direction,  only  the  fire  is  vitriolic  and  burns 
the  tympani  of  the  ears.  Seriously,  like  all 
complex  effects,  the  Schoenberg  scores  soon  be 
come  legible  if  scrutinised  without  prejudice. 
The  string  sextet,  if  compared  to  the  later  music, 
is  sunny  and  Mozartian  in  its  melodic  and  har 
monic  simplicity.  They  tell  me  that  Schoen 
berg  once  wrote  freely  in  the  normal  manner, 
but  finding  that  he  could  not  attract  attention 
101 


ARNOLD  SCHOENBERG 

he  deliberately  set  himself  to  make  abnormal 
music.  I  don't  know  how  true  this  may  be; 
the  same  sort  of  thing  was  said  of  Mallarme 
and  Paul  Cezanne  and  Richard  Strauss,  and 
was  absolutely  without  foundation. 

Schoenberg  is  an  autodidact,  the  lessons  in 
composition  from  Alexander  von  Zemlinsky  not 
affecting  his  future  path-breaking  propensities. 
His  mission  is  to  free  harmony  from  all  rules. 
A  man  doesn't  hit  on  such  combinations,  es 
pecially  in  his  acrid  instrumentation,  without 
heroic  labour.  His  knowledge  must  be  enor 
mous,  for  his  scores  are  as  logical  as  a  highly 
wrought  mosaic;  that  is,  logical,  if  you  grant 
him  his  premises.  He  is  perverse  and  he  wills 
his  music,  but  he  is  a  master  in  delineating  cer 
tain  moods,  though  the  means  he  employs  re 
volt  our  ears.  To  call  him  "crazy,"  is  merely 
amusing.  No  man  is  less  crazy,  few  men  are 
so  conscious  of  what  they  are  doing,  and  few 
modern  composers  boast  such  a  faculty  of  at 
tention.  Concentration  is  the  key-note  of  his 
work;  concentration  —  or  condensation  formal, 
concentration  of  thematic  material  —  to  the 
vanishing-point;  and  conciseness  in  treatment, 
although  every  license  is  allowed  in  modula 
tion. 

Every  composer  has  his  aura;  the  aura  of 
Arnold  Schoenberg  is,  for  me,  the  aura  of  sub 
tle  ugliness,  of  hatred  and  contempt,  of  cruelty, 
and  of  the  mystic  grandiose.  He  is  never  petty. 
He  sins  in  the  grand  manner  of  Nietzsche's 
102 


ARNOLD  SCHOENBERG 

Superman,  and  he  has  the  courage  of  his 
chromatics.  If  such  music-making  is  ever  to 
become  accepted,  then  I  long  for  Death  the 
Releaser.  More  shocking  still  would  be  the  sus 
picion  that  in  time  I  might  be  persuaded  to  like 
this  music,  to  embrace,  after  abhorring  it. 

As  for  Schoenberg,  the  painter  —  he  paints, 
too !  —  I  won't  take  even  the  guarded  praise  of 
such  an  accomplished  artist  as  Kandinsky  as 
sufficient  evidence.  I've  not  seen  any  of  the 
composer's  "purple  cows,"  and  hope  I  never 
shall  see  them.  His  black-and-white  repro 
ductions  look  pretty  bad,  and  not  nearly  as 
original  as  his  music.  The  portrait  of  a  lady 
(who  seems  to  be  listening  to  Schoenbergian 
harmonies)  hasn't  much  colour,  a  critic  tells  us, 
only  a  sickly  rose  in  her  dress.  He  also  paints 
grey-green  landscapes  and  visions,  the  latter 
dug  up  from  the  abysmal  depths  of  his  sub- 
consciousness.  Schoenberg  is,  at  least,  the  ob 
ject  of  considerable  curiosity.  What  he  will 
do  next  no  man  may  say;  but  at  least  it  won't 
be  like  the  work  of  any  one  else.  The  only  dis 
tinct  reminiscence  of  an  older  composer  that  I 
could  discover  in  his  Pierrot  was  Richard  Wag 
ner  (toujours  Wagner,  whether  Franck  or  Hum- 
perdinck  or  Strauss  or  Debussy),  and  of  him,  the 
first  page  of  the  Introduction  to  the  last  act  of 
Tristan  und  Isolde,  more  the  mood  than  the 
actual  themes.  Schoenberg  is  always  atmos 
pheric.  So  is  a  tornado.  He  is  the  poet  whose 
flowers  are  evil;  he  is  the  spirit  that  denies; 
103 


ARNOLD  SCHOENBERG 

never  a  realist,  like  Strauss,  ingeniously  imita 
ting  natural  sounds,  he  may  be  truthfully  de 
scribed  as  a  musical  symbolist. 

II 
MUSIC  OF  TO-DAY  AND  TO-MORROW 

Despite  the  fact  that  he  played  the  flute  and 
ranked  Rossini  above  Wagner,  Arthur  Schopen 
hauer  said  some  notable  things  about  music. 
"Art  is  ever  on  the  quest,"  is  a  wise  observa 
tion  of  his,  "a  quest,  and  a  divine  adventure"; 
though  this  restless  search  for  the  new  often 
ends  in  plain  reaction,  progress  may  be  crab- 
wise  and  still  be  progress.  I  fear  that  "prog 
ress"  as  usually  understood  is  a  glittering  "gen 
eral  idea"  that  blinds  us  to  the  truth.  Reform 
in  art  is  not  like  reform  in  politics;  you  can't 
reform  the  St.  Matthew  Passion  or  the  Fifth 
Symphony.  Is  Parsifal  a  reformation  of  Gluck  ? 
This  talk  of  reform  is  only  confusing  the  historic 
with  the  aesthetic.  Art  is  a  tricksy  quantity 
and  like  quicksilver  is  ever  mobile.  As  in  all 
genuine  revolutions  the  personal  equation  counts 
the  heaviest,  so  in  dealing  with  the  conditions 
of  music  at  the  present  time  one  must  study 
the  temperament  of  our  music-makers  and  let 
prophecy  sulk  in  its  tent  as  it  may. 

If  Ruskin  had  written  music-criticism,  he 
might  have  amplified  the  meaning  of  his  once- 
famous  phrase,  the  "pathetic  fallacy,"  for  I 
consider  it  a  pathetic  fallacy  —  though  not  in 
104 


ARNOLD  SCHOENBERG 

the  Ruskinian  sense  —  in  criticism  to  be  over 
shadowed  by  the  fear  that,  because  some  of 
our  critical  predecessors  misjudged  Wagner  or 
Manet  or  Ibsen,  we  should  be  too  merciful  in 
criticising  our  contemporaries.  Here  is  the 
"pathos  of  distance"  run  to  sentimental  seed. 
The  music  of  to-day  may  be  the  music  of  to 
morrow,  but  if  it  is  not,  what  then?  It  may 
satisfy  the  emotional  needs  of  the  moment,  yet 
to-morrow  be  a  stale  formula.  But  what  does 
that  prove  ?  Though  Bach  and  Beethoven  built 
their  work  on  the  bases  of  eternity  (employing 
this  tremendous  term  in  a  limited  sense),  one 
may  nevertheless  enjoy  the  men  whose  music 
is  of  slighter  texture  and  "modern."  Nor  is 
this  a  plea  for  mediocrity.  Mediocrity  we  shall 
always  have  with  us:  mediocrity  is  mankind  in 
the  normal,  and  normal  man  demands  of  art 
what  he  can  read  without  running,  hear  without 
thinking.  Every  century  produces  artists  who 
are  forgotten  in  a  generation,  though  they  fill 
the  eye  and  the  ear  for  a  time  with  their  clever 
production.  This  has  led  to  another  general 
idea,  that  of  transition,  of  intermediate  types. 
After  critical  perspective  has  been  attained,  it 
may  be  seen  that  the  majority  of  composers  fall 
into  this  category  not  a  consoling  notion,  but 
an  unavoidable.  Richard  Wagner  has  his  epi 
gones;  the  same  is  the  case  with  Haydn,  Mozart, 
Beethoven.  Mendelssohn  was  a  delightful  femi 
nine  variation  on  Bach,  and  after  Schumann 
came  Brahms. 

105 


ARNOLD  SCHOENBERG 

The  Wagner-Liszt  tradition  of  music-drama, 
so-called,  and  the  symphonic  poem  have  been 
continued  with  personal  modifications  by  Rich 
ard  Strauss;  Max  Reger  has  pinned  his  faith 
to  Brahms  and  absolute  music,  though  not  with 
out  a  marked  individual  variation.  In  consid 
ering  his  Sinfonietta,  the  Serenade,  the  Hiller 
Variations,  the  Prologue  to  a  Tragedy,  the 
Lustspiel  Overture,  the  two  concertos  respec 
tively  for  pianoforte  and  violin,  we  are  struck 
not  as  much  by  the  easy  handling  of  old  forms, 
as  by  the  stark  emotional  content  of  these  com 
positions.  Reger  began  as  a  Brahmsianer,  but 
he  has  not  thus  far  succeeded  in  fusing  form 
and  theme  as  wonderfully  as  did  his  master. 
There  is  a  Dionysian  strain  in  his  music  that 
too  often  is  in  jarring  discord  with  the  intel 
lectual  structure  of  his  work.  But  there  is  no 
denying  that  Max  Reger  is  the  one  man  in 
Germany  to-day  who  is  looked  upon  as  the 
inevitable  rival  of  Richard  Strauss.  Their  dis 
parate  tendencies  bring  to  the  lips  the  old 
query,  Under  which  king?  Some  think  that 
Arnold  Schoenberg  may  be  a  possible  antago 
nist  in  the  future,  but  for  the  present  it  is  Reger 
and  Strauss,  and  no  third  in  opposition. 

The  Strauss  problem  is  a  serious  one.  In 
America  much  criticism  of  his  performances  has 
contrived  to  evade  the  real  issue.  He  has  been 
called  hard  names  because  he  is  money-loving, 
or  because  he  has  not  followed  in  the  steps  of 
Beethoven,  because  of  a  thousand  and  one 
106 


ARNOLD   SCHOENBERG 

things  of  no  actual  critical  value.  That  he  is 
easily  the  greatest  technical  master  of  his  art 
now  living  there  can  be  no  question.  And  he 
has  wound  up  a  peg  or  two  the  emotional  in 
tensity  of  music.  Whether  this  striving  after 
nerve-shattering  combinations  is  a  dangerous 
tendency  is  quite  beside  the  mark.  Let  us 
register  the  fact.  Beginning  in  the  path  made 
by  Brahms,  he  soon  came  under  the  influence 
of  Liszt,  and  we  were  given  a  chaplet  of  tone- 
poems,  sheer  programme-music,  but  cast  in  a 
bigger  and  more  flexible  mould  than  the  thrice- 
familiar  Liszt  pattern.  Whatever  fate  is  re 
served  for  Death  and  Transfiguration,  Till  Eu- 
lenspiegel,  Also  Sprach  Zarathustra,  Hero's  Life, 
and  Don  Quixote,  there  is  no  denying  their  sig 
nificance  during  the  last  decade  of  the  nine 
teenth  century.  For  me  it  seemed  a  decided  step 
backward  when  Strauss  entered  the  operatic 
field.  One  so  conspicuously  rich  in  the  gift  of 
music-making  (for  the  titles  of  his  symphonies 
never  prevented  us  from  enjoying  their  colouring 
and  eloquence)  might  have  avoided  the  more 
facile  triumphs  of  the  stage.  However,  Elektra 
needs  no  apology,  and  the  joyous  Rosenkavalier 
is  a  distinct  addition  to  the  repertory  of  high- 
class  musical  comedy.  Strauss  is  an  experimen 
ter  and  no  doubt  a  man  for  whom  the  visible 
box-office  exists,  to  parody  a  saying  of  Gautier's. 
But  we  must  judge  him  by  his  own  highest 
standard,  the  standard  of  Elektra,  Don  Quixote, 
and  Till  Eulenspiegel,  not  to  mention  the  beau- 
107 


ARNOLD  SCHOENBERG 

tiful  songs.  Ariadne  on  Naxos  was  a  not  par 
ticularly  successful  experiment,  and  what  the 
Alp  Symphony  will  prove  to  be  we  may  only 
surmise.  Probably  this  versatile  tone-poet  has 
said  his  best.  He  is  not  a  second  Richard  Wag 
ner,  not  yet  has  he  the  charm  of  the  Lizst  per 
sonality,  but  he  bulks  too  large  in  contemporary 
history  to  be  called  a  decadent,  although  in  the 
precise  meaning  of  the  word,  without  its  stupid 
misinterpretation,  he  is  a  decadent  inasmuch  as 
he  dwells  with  emphasis  on  the  technique  of  his 
composition,  sacrificing  the  whole  for  the  page, 
putting  the  phrase  above  the  page,  and  the 
single  note  in  equal  competition  with  the  phrase. 
In  a  word,  Richard  Strauss  is  a  romantic,  and 
flies  the  red  flag  of  his  faith.  He  has  not  fol 
lowed  the  advice  of  Paul  Verlaine  in  taking  elo 
quence  by  the  neck  and  wringing  it.  He  is 
nothing  if  not  eloquent  and  expressive,  magni 
fying  his  Bavarian  song-birds  to  the  size  of 
Alpine  eagles.  The  newer  choir  has  avoided 
the  very  things  in  which  Strauss  has  excelled, 
for  that  way  lie  repetition  and  satiety.  [Since 
writing  the  above,  Strauss  has  given  the  world 
his  ballet  The  Legend  of  Joseph,  in  which  he 
has  said  nothing  novel,  but  has  with  his  cus 
tomary  skill  mixed  anew  the  old  compound  of 
glittering  colours  and  sultry,  exotic  harmonies.] 

However,  Strauss  is  not  the  only  member  of 
the  post-Wagnerian  group,  but  he  is  the  chief 
one  who  has  kept  his  individual  head  above 
108 


ARNOLD   SCHOENBERG 

water  in  the  welter  and  chaos  of  the  school. 
Where  are  Cyrill  Kistner,  Hans  Sommer,  August 
Bungert,  and  the  others?  Humperdinck  is  a 
mediocrity,  even  more  so  than  Puccini.  And 
what  of  the  banalities  of  Bruckner  ?  His  Wag- 
nerian  cloak  is  a  world  too  large  for  his  trifling 
themes.  Siegfried  Wagner  does  not  count,  and 
for  anything  novel  we  are  forced  to  turn  our 
eyes  and  ears  toward  the  direction  of  France. 
After  Berlioz,  a  small  fry,  indeed,  yet  not  with 
out  interest.  The  visit  made  by  Claude  De 
bussy  to  Russia  in  1879  and  during  his  forma 
tive  period  had  consequences.  He  absorbed 
Moussorgsky,  and  built  upon  him,  and  he  had 
Wagner  at  his  finger-ends;  like  Charpentier  he 
cannot  keep  Wagner  out  of  his  scores;  the 
Bayreuth  composer  is  the  King  Charles's  head 
in  his  manuscript.  Tristan  und  Isolde  in  par 
ticular  must  have  haunted  the  composers  of 
Louise,  and  Pelleas  et  Melisande.  The  Julien 
of  Charpentier  is  on  a  lower  literary  and  musical 
level  than  Louise,  which,  all  said  and  done, 
has  in  certain  episodes  a  picturesque  charm; 
the  new  work  is  replete  with  bad  symbolism 
and  worse  music-spinning.  Debussy  has  at 
least  a  novel,  though  somewhat  monotonous, 
manner.  He  is  "precious,"  and  in  ideas  as  con 
stipated  as  Mallarme,  whose  Afternoon  of  a  Faun 
he  so  adequately  set.  Nevertheless,  there  is, 
at  times,  magic  in  his  music.  It  is  the  magic 
of  suggestiveness,  of  the  hinted  mystery  which 
only  Huysmans's  superior  persons  scattered 
109 


ARNOLD   SCHOENBERG 

throughout  the  universe  may  guess.  After  De 
bussy  comes  Dukas,  Ravel,  Florent  Schmitt, 
Rogier-Ducasse,  men  who  seem  to  have  caught 
anew  the  spirit  of  the  eighteenth-century  music 
and  given  it  to  us  not  through  the  poetic  haze 
of  Debussy,  but  in  gleaming,  brilliant  phrases. 
There  is  promise  in  Schmitt.  As  to  Vincent 
d'Indy,  you  differ  with  his  scheme,  yet  he  is  a 
master,  as  was  Cesar  Franck  a  master,  as  are 
masters  the  two  followers  of  D'Indy,  Albert 
Roussel  and  Theodat  de  Severac.  Personally  I 
admire  Paul  Dukas,  though  without  any  war 
rant  whatever  for  placing  him  on  the  same  plane 
with  Claude  Debussy,  who,  after  all,  has  added 
a  novel  nuance  to  art.  But  they  are  all  makers 
of  anxious  mosaics;  never  do  they  carve  the 
block;  exquisite  miniaturists,  yet  lack  the  big 
brush  work  and  epical  sweep  of  the  preceding 
generation.  Above  all,  the  entire  school  is 
minus  virility;  its  music  is  of  the  distaff,  and  has 
not  the  masculine  ring  of  crossed  swords. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  consider  here  the 
fantastic  fashionings  of  Erik  Satie,  the  "newest" 
French  composer.  He  seems  to  have  out- 
Schoenberged  Schoenberg  in  his  little  piano 
pieces  bearing  the  alluring  titles  of  Embryons 
desseches,  preludes  and  pastorales.  Apart  from 
the  extravagant  titles,  the  music  itself  is  ludi 
crous  qua  music,  but  not  without  subtle  irony. 
That  trio  of  Chopin's  Funeral  March  played  in 
C  and  declared  as  a  citation  from  the  celebrated 
mazurka  of  Schubert  does  touch  the  rib  risible, 
no 


ARNOLD  SCHOENBERG 

X 

There  are  neither  time  signature  nor  bars.  All  is 
gentle  chaos  and  is  devoted  to  the  celebration, 
in  tone,  of  certain  sea-plants  and  creatures. 
This  sounds  like  Futurism  or  the  passionate 
patterns  of  the  Cubists,  but  I  assure  you  I've 
seen  and  tried  to  play  the  piano  music  of  Satie. 
That  he  is  an  arch-humbug  I  shall  neither  main 
tain  nor  deny.  After  Schoenberg  anything  is 
possible  in  this  vale  of  agonising  dissonance. 
I  recall  with  positive  satisfaction  a  tiny  com 
position  for  piano  by  Rebikoff,  which  he  calls  a 
setting  of  The  Devil's  Daughters,  a  mural  de 
sign  by  Franz  von  Stuck  of  Munich.  To  be  sure, 
the  bass  is  in  C  and  the  treble  in  D  flat,  never 
theless  the  effect  is  almost  piquant.  The  hu 
mour  of  the  new  composers  is  melancholy  in  its 
originality,  but  Gauguin  has  said  that  in  art 
one  must  be  either  a  plagiarist  or  a  revolution 
ist.  Satie  is  hardly  a  plagiarist,  though  the 
value  of  his  revolution  is  doubtful. 

The  influence  of  Verdi  has  been  supreme 
among  the  Verdists  of  young  Italy,  though  not 
one  has  proved  knee-high  to  a  grasshopper  when 
compared  with  the  composer  of  that  incompar 
able  Falstaffo.  Ponchielli  played  his  part,  and 
under  his  guidance  such  dissimilar  talents  as 
Puccini,  Mascagni,  and  Leoncavallo  were  fos 
tered.  Puccini  stopped  with  La  Boheme,  all  the 
rest  is  repetition  and  not  altogether  admirable 
repetition.  That  he  has  been  the  hero  of  many 
phonographs  has  nothing  to  do  with  his  in 
trinsic  merits.  Cleverness  is  his  predominating 
in 


ARNOLD   SCHOENBERG 

vice,  and  a  marked  predilection  for  time-serving; 
that  is,  he,  like  the  excellent  musical  journalist 
that  he  is,  feels  the  public  pulse,  spreads  his 
sails  to  the  breeze  of  popular  favour,  and  while 
he  is  never  as  banal  as  Humperdinck  or  Leon 
cavallo,  he  exhibits  this  quality  in  suffusion. 
Above  all,  he  is  not  original.  If  Mascagni  had 
only  followed  the  example  of  Single-Speech 
Hamilton,  he  would  have  spared  himself  many 
mortifications  and  his  admirers  much  boredom. 
The  new  men,  such  as  Wolf-Ferrari,  Montemezzi, 
Giordano,  and  numerous  others  are  eclectics; 
they  belong  to  any  country,  and  their  musical 
cosmopolitanism,  while  affording  agreeable  speci 
mens,  may  be  dismissed  with  the  comment  that 
their  art  lacks  pronounced  personal  profile.  This 
does  not  mean  that  L'Amore  dei  Tre  Re  is  less 
delightful.  The  same  may  be  said  of  Ludwig 
Thuille  and  also  of  the  Neo-Belgian  group.  Si 
belius,  the  Finn,  is  a  composer  with  a  marked 
temperament.  Among  the  English  Delius  shows 
strongest.  He  is  more  personal  and  more  original 
than  Elgar.  Not  one  of  these  can  tie  the  shoe 
strings  of  Peter  Cornelius,  the  composer  of  short 
masterpieces,  The  Barber  of  Bagdad  —  the  origi 
nal,  not  the  bedevilled  version  of  Mottl. 

In  Germany  there  is  an  active  group  of  young 
men:  Ernest  Boehe,  Walter  Braunfels,  Max 
Schillings,  Hans  Pfitzner,  F.  Klose,  Karl  Ehren- 
berg,  Dohnany  —  born  Hungarian  —  H.  G. 
Noren.  The  list  is  long.  Fresh,  agreeable,  and 
indicative  of  a  high  order  of  talent  is  a  new  opera 
112 


ARNOLD   SCHOENBERG 

by  Franz  Schreker,  Das  Spielwerk  und  die  Prin- 
zessin  (1913).  Schreker's  earlier  opera,  Der 
feme  Klang,  I  missed,  but  I  enjoyed  the  later 
composition,  charged  as  it  is  with  fantasy,  atmos 
phere,  bold  climaxes,  and  framing  a  legendary 
libretto.  The  influence  of  Debussy  is  marked. 
Curiously  enough,  the  Russian  Moussorgsky, 
whose  work  was  neglected  during  his  lifetime, 
has  proved  to  be  a  precursor  to  latter-day 
music.  He  was  not  affected  in  his  develop 
ment  by  Franz  Liszt,  whose  influence  on  Tschai- 
kovsky,  Borodin,  Rimsky-Korsakof,  Glazounof 
—  he  less  than  the  others  —  was  considerable. 
Like  Dostoievsky,  Moussorgsky  is  Mr-Russian, 
not  a  polished  production  of  Western  culture, 
as  are  Turgenieff,  Tschaikovsky,  Tolstoy,  or 
Rubinstein.  He  is  not  a  romantic,  this  Rus 
sian  bear;  the  entire  modern  school  is  at  one 
in  their  rejection  of  romantic  moods  and  atti 
tudes.  Now,  music  is  pre-eminently  a  romantic 
art.  I  once  called  it  a  species  of  emotional 
mathematics,  yet  so  vast  is  its  kingdom  that 
it  may  contain  the  sentimentalities  of  Mendels 
sohn,  the  Old  World  romance  of  Schumann,  the 
sublimated  poetry  of  Chopin,  and  the  thunder 
ous  epical  accents  of  Beethoven. 

Moussorgsky  I  have  styled  a  "primitive," 
and  I  fancy  it  is  as  good  an  ascription  as  an 
other.  He  is  certainly  as  primitive  as  Paul 
Gauguin,  who  accomplished  the  difficult  feat 
of  shedding  his  Parisian  skin  as  an  artist  and 
reappearing  as  a  modified  Tahitian  savage.  But 

113 


ARNOLD   SCHOENBERG 

I  suspect  there  was  a  profounder  sincerity  in 
the  case  of  the  Muscovite.  Little  need  now  to 
sing  the  praises  of  Boris  Godunoff,  though  not 
having  seen  and  heard  Chaliapine,  New  York 
is  yet  to  receive  the  fullest  and  sharpest  im 
pression  of  the  role  notwithstanding  the  sym 
pathetic  reading  of  Arturo  Toscanini.  Khovan- 
chtchina  is  even  more  rugged,  more  Russian. 
Hearing  it  after  Tschaikovsky's  charming,  but 
weak,  setting  of  Eugen  Onegin,  the  forthright 
and  characteristic  qualities  of  Moussorgsky  are 
set  in  higher  relief.  All  the  old  rhetoric  goes 
by  the  board,  and  sentiment,  in  our  sense  of 
the  word,  is  not  drawn  upon  too  heavily.  Stra 
vinsky  is  a  new  man  not  to  be  slighted,  nor  are 
Kodaly  and  Bartok.  I  mention  only  the  names 
of  those  composers  with  whose  music  I  am  fairly 
familiar.  Probably  Stravinsky  and  his  musical 
fireworks  will  be  called  a  Futurist,  whatever 
that  portentous  title  may  mean.  However,  the 
music  of  Tschaikovsky,  Rimsky-Korsakof ,  Rach- 
maninof,  and  the  others  is  no  longer  revolution 
ary,  but  may  be  considered  as  evolutionary. 
Again  the  theory  of  transitional  periods  and 
types  comes  into  play,  but  I  notice  this  theory 
has  been  applied  only  to  minor  masters,  never 
to  creators.  We  don't  call  Bach  or  Handel  or 
Mozart  or  Beethoven  intermediate  types.  Per 
haps  some  day  Wagner  will  seem  as  original  to 
posterity  as  Beethoven  does  to  our  generation. 
Wasn't  it  George  Saintsbury  who  once  remarked 
that  all  discussion  of  contemporaries  is  conver- 
114 


ARNOLD   SCHOENBERG 

sation,  not  criticism?  If  this  be  the  case,  then 
it  is  suicidal  for  a  critic  to  pass  judgment  upon 
the  music-making  of  his  day,  a  fact  obviously 
at  variance  with  daily  practice.  Yet  it  is  a 
dictum  not  to  be  altogether  contravened.  For 
instance,  my  first  impressions  of  Schoenberg 
were  neither  flattering  to  his  composition  nor 
to  my  indifferent  critical  acumen.  If  I  had 
begun  by  listening  to  the  comparatively  mellif 
luous  D-minor  string  quartet,  played  by  the 
Flonzaley  Quartet,  as  did  my  New  York  col 
leagues,  instead  of  undergoing  the  terrifying 
aural  tortures  of  Lieder  des  Pierrot  Lunaire,  I 
might  have  been  as  amiable  as  the  critics.  The 
string  sextet  has  been  received  here  with  critical 
cordiality.  Its  beauties  were  exposed  by  the 
Kneisel  Quartet.  But  circumstances  were  other 
wise,  and  it  was  later  that  I  heard  the  two  string 
quartets  —  the  latter  in  F-sharp  minor  (by  cour 
tesy,  this  tonality),  with  voices  at  the  close  — 
the  astounding  Gurrelieder  and  the  piano  pieces. 
The  orchestral  poem  of  Pelleas  et  Melisande  I 
have  yet  to  enjoy  or  execrate;  there  seems  to 
be  no  middle  term  for  Schoenberg's  amazing 
art.  If  I  say  I  hate  or  like  it  that  is  only  a 
personal  expression,  not  a  criticism  standing 
foursquare.  I  fear  I  subscribe  to  the  truth  of 
Mr.  Saintsbury's  epigram. 

It  may  be  considered  singular  that  the  most 
original  "new"  music  hails  from  Austria,  not 
Germany.  No  doubt  that  Strauss  is  the  pro 
tagonist  of  the  romantics,  dating  from  Liszt  and 


ARNOLD  SCHOENBERG 

Wagner;  and  that  Max  Reger  is  the  protago 
nist  of  the  modern  classicists,  counting  Brahms 
as  their  fount  (did  you  ever  read  what  Wagner, 
almost  a  septuagenarian, wrote  of  Brahms:  "Der 
jiidische  Czardas- Auf spieler  "?).  But  they  are 
no  longer  proclaimed  by  those  ultramoderns 
who  dare  to  call  Strauss  an  intermediate  type. 
So  rapidly  doth  music  speed  down  the  grooves 
of  time.  From  Vienna  comes  Schoenberg;  in 
Vienna  lives  and  composes  the  youthful  Erich 
Korngold,  whose  earlier  music  seems  to  well  as 
if  from  some  mountain  spring,  although  with 
all  its  spontaneity  it  has  no  affinity  with  Mo 
zart.  It  is  distinctively  "modern,"  employing 
the  resources  of  the  "new"  harmonic  displace 
ments  and  the  multicoloured  modern  orchestral 
apparatus.  Korngold  is  so  receptive  that  he 
reveals  just  now  the  joint  influences  of  Strauss 
and  Schoenberg.  Yet  I  think  the  path  lies 
straight  before  this  young  genius,  a  straight 
and  shining  path. 

The  little  Erich  Korngold  —  in  reality  a 
plump,  good-looking  boy  —  presents  few  prob 
lems  for  the  critic.  I  know  his  piano  music, 
replete  with  youthful  charm,  and  I  heard  his 
overture  produced  by  the  Berlin  Philharmonic 
Orchestra  (the  fifth  concert  of  the  season)  under 
the  leadership  of  Arthur  Nikisch.  Whether  or 
not  the  youth  is  helped  by  his  teacher,  as  some 
say,  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  his  precocious 
talent.  His  facility  in  composition  is  Mozart- 
ian.  Nothing  laboured,  all  as  spontaneous  as 
116 


ARNOLD  SCHOENBERG 

Schoenberg  is  calculating.  He  scores  conven 
tionally,  that  is,  latter-day  commonplaces  are 
the  rule  in  his  disposition  and  treatment  of  the 
instrumental  army.  Like  Mozart,  he  is  melo 
dious,  easy  to  follow,  and,  like  Mozart,  he  be 
gins  by  building  on  his  immediate  predecessor, 
in  his  case  Strauss.  Debussy  is  not  absent,  nor 
is  Fritz  Delius. 

I  heard  not  a  little  of  Der  Rosenkavalier. 
But  who  would  suspect  a  lad  of  such  a  formal 
sense  —  even  if  it  is  only  imitative  —  of  such 
clear  development,  such  climaxes,  and  such  a 
capital  coda !  The  chief  test  of  the  music  — 
would  you  listen  to  it  if  you  did  not  know  who 
composed  it  ?  —  is  met.  The  overture  is  enter 
taining,  if  not  very  original.  Truly  a  wonder 
child. 

Hugo  Wolf  was  a  song  writer  who  perilously 
grazed  genius,  but  he  rotted  before  he  was  ripe. 
Need  we  consider  the  respective  positions  of 
Bruckner  or  Mahler,  one  all  prodigality  and 
diffuseness,  the  other  largely  cerebral?  And 
Mahler  without  Bruckner  would  hardly  have 
been  possible.  Those  huge  tonal  edifices,  sky 
scrapers  in  bulk,  soon  prove  barren  to  the  spirit. 
A  mountain  in  parturition  with  a  mouse !  Nor 
need  we  dwell  upon  the  ecstatic  Scriabine  who 
mimicked  Chopin  so  deftly  in  his  piano  pieces, 
"going"  Liszt  and  Strauss  one  better  —  or  ten, 
if  you  will  —  and  spilt  his  soul  in  swooning, 
roseate  vibrations.  Withal,  a  man  of  ability 
and  vast  ambitions.  (He  died  in  1915.) 
117 


ARNOLD  SCHOENBERG 

More  than  two  years  ago  I  heard  in  Vienna 
Schoenberg's  Gurrelieder,  a  setting  to  a  dra 
matic  legend  by  Jens  Peter  Jacobsen.  This 
choral  and  orchestral  work  was  composed  in 
1902,  but  it  sounds  newer  than  the  quartets 
or  the  sextet.  In  magnitude  it  beats  Berlioz. 
It  demands  five  solo  singers,  a  dramatic  reader, 
three  choral  bodies,  and  an  orchestra  of  one 
hundred  and  forty,  in  which  figure  eight  flutes, 
seven  clarinets,  six  horns,  four  Wagner  tubas. 
Little  wonder  the  impression  was  a  stupendous 
one.  There  were  episodes  of  great  beauty,  dra 
matic  moments,  and  appalling  climaxes.  As 
Schoenberg  has  decided  both  in  his  teaching 
and  practice  that  there  are  no  unrelated  har 
monies,  cacophony  was  not  absent.  Another 
thing:  this  composer  has  temperament.  He  is 
cerebral,  as  few  before  him,  yet  in  this  work 
the  bigness  of  the  design  did  not  detract  from 
the  emotional  quality.  I  confess  I  did  not  un 
derstand  at  one  hearing  the  curious  dislocated 
harmonies  and  splintered  themes  —  melodies 
they  are  not  —  in  the  Pierrot  Lunaire.  I  have 
been  informed  that  the  ear  should  play  a  sec 
ondary  r61e  in  this  "new"  music;  no  longer 
through  the  porches  of  the  ear  must  filter  plan 
gent  tones,  wooing  the  tympanum  with  ravish 
ing  accords.  It  is  now  the  "inner  ear,"  which 
is  symbolic  of  a  higher  type  of  musical  art.  A 
complete  disassociation  of  ideas,  harmonies, 
rhythmic  life,  architectonic  is  demanded.  To 
quote  an  admirer  of  the  Vienna  revolutionist: 
118 


ARNOLD  SCHOENBERG 

"The  entire  man  in  you  must  be  made  over 
before  you  can  divine  Schoenberg's  art."  Per 
haps  his  aesthetik  embraces  what  the  metaphy 
sicians  call  the  Langley- James  hypothesis;  fear, 
anxiety,  pain  are  the  "content,"  and  his  hearers 
actually  suffer  as  are  supposed  to  suffer  his 
characters  or  moods  or  ideas.  The  old  order 
has  changed,  changed  very  much,  yet  I  dimly 
feel  that  if  this  art  is  to  endure  it  contains, 
perhaps  in  precipitation,  the  elements  without 
which  no  music  is  permanent.  But  his  ellip 
tical  patterns  are  interesting,  above  all  bold. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  absolute  originality. 
Even  the  individual  Schoenberg,  the  fabricator 
of  nervous  noises,  leans  heavily  on  Wagner. 
Wagner  is  the  fountainhead  of  the  new  school, 
let  them  mock  his  romanticism  as  they  may. 

Is  all  this  to  be  the  music  of  to-morrow? 
Frankly,  I  don't  know,  and  I'm  sure  Schoen 
berg  doesn't  know.  He  is  said  to  be  guided 
by  his  daimon,  as  was  Socrates;  let  us  hope 
that  familiar  may  prompt  him  to  more  com 
prehensible  utterances.  But  he  must  be  counted 
with  nowadays.  He  is  significant  of  the  re 
action  against  formal  or  romantic  beauty.  I  said 
the  same  more  than  a  decade  ago  of  Debussy. 
Again  the  critical  watchmen  in  the  high  towers 
are  signalling  Schoenberg's  movements,  not  with 
out  dismay.  Cheer  up,  brethren  !  Preserve  an 
open  mind.  It  is  too  soon  to  beat  reactionary 
bosoms,  crying  aloud,  Nunc  dimittis  !  Remem 
ber  the  monstrous  fuss  made  over  the  methods 
119 


ARNOLD   SCHOENBERG 

of  Richard  Strauss  and  Claude  Debussy.  I 
shouldn't  be  surprised  if  ten  years  hence  Ar 
nold  Schoenberg  proves  quite  as  conventional  a 
member  of  musical  society  as  those  other  two 
"anarchs  of  art." 


120 


VI 
FRANK  WEDEKIND 

A  VERY  deceptive  mask  is  literature.  Here 
is  your  Nietzsche  with  his  warrior  pen  slashing 
away  at  the  conventional  lies  of  civilisation,  a 
terrific  figure  of  outraged  manhood,  though  in 
private  life  he  was  the  gentlest  of  men,  self- 
sacrificing,  lovable,  modest,  and  moral  to  a  pain 
ful  degree.  But  see  what  his  imitators  have 
made  of  him.  And  in  all  the  tons  of  rubbish 
that  have  been  written  about  Tolstoy,  the  story 
told  by  Anna  Seuron  is  the  most  significant. 
But  a  human  being  is  better  than  a  half-god. 

Bearing  this  in  mind  I  refused  to  be  scared 
in  advance  by  the  notorious  reputation  of  Frank 
Wedekind,  whose  chief  claim  to  recognition  in 
New  York  is  his  Spring's  Awakening,  produced 
at  the  Irving  Place  Theatre  seasons  ago.  I  had 
seen  this  moving  drama  of  youth  more  than  once 
in  the  Kammerspielhaus  of  the  Deutsches  The 
atre,  Berlin,  and  earlier  the  same  poet's  drama 
Erdgeist  (in  the  summer,  1903),  and  again  re 
fused  to  shudder  at  its  melodramatic  atrocities. 
Wedekind  wore  at  that  time  the  mask  Mephis- 
tophelian,  and  his  admirers,  for  he  had  many 
from  the  beginning,  delighted  in  what  they 
called  his  spiritual  depravity  —  forgetting  that 
121 


FRANK  WEDEKIND 

the  two  qualities  cannot  be  blended.  Now, 
while  I  have  termed  Frank  Wedekind  the 
naughty  boy  of  the  modern  German  drama,  I 
by  no  means  place  him  among  those  spirits  like 
Goethe's  Mephisto,  who  perpetually  deny.  On 
the  contrary,  he  is  one  of  the  most  affirmative 
voices  in  the  new  German  literature. 

He  is  always  asserting.  If  he  bowls  away  at 
some  rickety  ninepin  of  a  social  lie,  he  does  it 
with  a  gusto  that  is  exhilarating.  To  be  sure, 
whatever  the  government  is,  he  is  against  it; 
which  only  means  he  is  a  rebel  born,  hating 
constraint  and  believing  with  Stendhal  that  one's 
first  enemies  are  one's  own  parents.  No  doubt, 
after  bitter  experience,  Wedekind  discovered 
that  his  bitterest  foe  was  himself.  That  he  is 
a  tricky,  Puck-like  nature  is  evident.  He  loves 
to  shock,  a  trait  common  to  all  romanticists 
from  Gautier  down.  He  sometimes  says  things 
he  doesn't  mean.  He  contradicts  himself  as  do 
most  men  of  genius,  and,  despite  his  poetic 
temperament,  there  is  in  him  much  of  the  lay 
preacher.  I  have  noticed  this  quality  in  men 
such  as  Ibsen  and  Strindberg,  who  cry  aloud 
in  the  wilderness  of  Philistia  for  freedom,  for 
the  "free,  unhampered  life"  and  then  devise  a 
new  system  that  is  thrice  as  irksome  as  the  old, 
that  puts  one's  soul  into  a  spiritual  bondage. 
Wedekind  is  of  this  order;  a  moralist  is  con 
cealed  behind  his  shining  ambuscade  of  verbal 
immoralism.  In  Germany  every  one  sports  his 
Weltanschauung,  his  personal  interpretation  of 
122 


FRANK  WEDEKIND 

life  and  its  meanings.  In  a  word,  a  working 
philosophy  —  and  a  fearsome  thing  it  is  to  see 
young  students  with  fresh  sabre  cuts  on  their 
honest  countenances  demolishing  Kant,  Schopen 
hauer,  or  Nietzsche  only  to  set  up  some  other 
system. 

Always  a  system,  always  this  compartment- 
ising  of  the  facts  of  existence.  Scratch  the  sen- 
timentalism  and  asstheticism  of  a  German,  and 
you  come  upon  a  pedant.  Wedekind  has  not 
altogether  escaped  this  national  peculiarity. 
But  he  writes  for  to-morrow,  not  yesterday; 
for  youth,  and  not  to  destroy  the  cherished 
prejudices  of  the  old.  His  admirers  speak  of 
him  as  a  unicum,  a  man  so  original  as  to  be 
without  forerunners,  without  followers.  A  mon 
ster?  For  no  one  can  escape  the  common  law 
of  descent,  whether  physical  or  spiritual.  Wede 
kind  has  had  plenty  of  teachers,  not  excepting 
the  most  valuable  of  all,  personal  experience. 
The  sinister  shadow  cast  by  Ibsen  fell  across 
the  shoulders  of  the  young  poet,  and  he  has 
read  Max  S  timer  and  Nietzsche  not  wisely,  but 
too  well.  He  is  as  frank  as  Walt  Whitman  (and 
as  shameless)  concerning  the  mysteries  of  life, 
and  as  healthy  (and  as  coarse)  as  Rabelais. 
Furthermore,  Strindberg  played  a  marked  role 
in  his  artistic  development.  Without  the  hope 
less  misogyny  of  the  Swede,  without  his  pessi 
mism,  Wedekind  is  quite  as  drastic.  And  the 
realism  of  the  Antoine  Theatre  should  not  be 
omitted. 

123 


FRANK  WEDEKIND 

He  exhibits  in  his  menagerie  of  types  —  many 
of  them  new  in  the  theatre  —  a  striking  collec 
tion  of  wild  animals.  In  the  prologue  to  one  of 
his  plays  he  tells  his  audience  that  to  Wedekind 
must  they  come  if  they  wish  to  see  genuine  wild 
and  beautiful  beasts.  This  sounds  like  Stirner. 
He  lays  much  stress  on  the  fact  that  literature, 
whether  poetic  or  otherwise,  has  become  too 
"literary"  —  hardly  a  novel  idea;  and  boasts 
that  none  of  his  characters  has  read  a  book. 
The  curse  of  modern  life  is  the  multiplication 
of  books.  Very  true,  and  yet  I  find  that  Wede 
kind  is  "literary,"  that  he  could  exclaim  with 
Stephan  Mallarme:  "La  chair  est  triste,  helas! 
et  j'ai  lu  tous  les  livres." 

Regarding  the  modern  stage  he  is  also  posi 
tive.  He  believes  that  for  the  last  twenty  years 
dramatic  literature  is  filled  with  half-humans, 
men  who  are  not  fit  for  fatherhood,  women  who 
would  escape  the  burden  of  bearing  children 
because  of  their  superior  culture.  This  is  called 
"a  problem  play,"  the  hero  or  heroine  of  which 
commits  suicide  at  the  end  of  the  fifth  act  to  the 
great  delight  of  neurotic,  dissatisfied  ladies  and 
hysterical  men.  Weak  wills  —  in  either  sex  — 
have  been  the  trump  card  of  the  latter-day  dram 
atist;  not  a  sound  man  or  woman  who  isn't 
at  the  same  time  stupid,  can  be  found  in  the 
plays  of  Ibsen  or  Hauptmann  or  the  rest.  Wede 
kind  mentions  no  names,  but  he  tweaks  several 
noses  prominent  in  dramatic  literature. 

He  is  the  younger  generation  kicking  in  the 
124 


FRANK  WEDEKIND 

panels  of  the  doors  in  the  old  houses.  There  is 
a  hellish  racket  for  a  while,  and  then  when  the 
dust  clears  away  you  discern  the  revolutionist 
calmly  ensconced  in  the  seats  of  the  bygone 
mighty  and  passionately  preaching  from  the 
open  window  his  version  of  New  Life;  he  is 
become  reformer  himself  and  would  save  a  per 
ishing  race  —  spiritually  speaking  —  from  dam 
nation  by  the  gospel  of  beauty,  by  shattering 
the  shackles  of  love  —  especially  the  latter;  love 
to  be  love  must  be  free,  preaches  Wedekind; 
love  is  still  in  the  swaddling  clothes  of  Oriental 
prejudice.  George  Meredith  once  said  the  same 
in  Diana  of  the  Crossways,  although  he  said 
it  more  epigrammatically.  For  Wedekind  reli 
gion  is  a  symbol  of  our  love  of  ourselves;  never 
theless,  outside  of  his  two  engrossing  themes, 
love  and  death,  he  is  chiefly  concerned  with 
religion,  not  alone  as  material  for  artistic  treat 
ment,  .but  as  a  serious  problem  of  our  exist 
ence.  A  Lucifer  in  pride,  he  tells  us  that  he 
has  never  made  of  good  evil,  or  vice  versa;  he, 
unlike  Baudelaire,  has  never  deliberately  said: 
Evil,  be  thou  my  good !  That  he  has  emptied 
upon  the  boards  from  his  Pandora-box  imagina 
tion  the  greatest  gang  of  scoundrels,  shady  la 
dies,  master  swindlers,  social  degenerates,  circus 
people,  servants,  convicts,  professional  strong 
men,  half -crazy  idealists,  irritable  rainbow-eaters 
—  the  demi-monde  of  a  subterranean  world  — 
that  ever  an  astonished  world  saw  perform  their 
antics  in  front  of  the  footlights  is  not  to  be  de- 

I25 


FRANK  WEDEKIND 

nied,  but  it  must  be  confessed  that  his  criminal 
supermen  and  superwomen  usually  get  their  de 
serts.  Like  Octave  Mirbeau,  he  faces  the  music 
of  facts,  and  there  are  none  too  abhorrent  that 
he  doesn't  transform  into  something  significant. 

On  the  technical  side  Strindberg  has  taught 
him  much;  he  prefers  the  one-act  form,  or  a 
series  of  loosely  joined  episodes.  Formally  he 
is  not  a  master,  nor  despite  his  versatility  is 
he  objective.  With  Strindberg  he  has  been 
called  "Shakespearian"  —fatal  word  —  but  he 
is  not;  that  in  the  vast  domain  of  Shakespeare 
there  is  room  for  them  both  I  do  not  doubt; 
room  in  the  vicinity  of  the  morbid  swamps  and 
dark  forests,  or  hard  by  the  house  of  them  that 
are  melancholy  mad. 

The  oftener  I  see  or  read  Wedekind  the  more 
I  admire  his  fund  of  humour.  But  I  feel  the 
tug  of  his  theories.  The  dramatist  in  him  is 
hampered  by  the  theorist  who  would  "reform" 
all  life  —  he  is  neither  a  socialist  nor  an  upholder 
of  female  suffrage  —  and  when  some  of  his  ad 
miring  critics  talk  of  his  "ideals  of  beauty  and 
power,"  then  I  know  the  game  is  up  —  the 
prophet,  the  dogmatist,  the  pedant,  not  the 
poet,  artist,  and  witty  observer  of  life,  are 
thrust  in  the  foreground. 

There  is  Hermann  Sudermann,  for  example, 
the  precise  antipodes  of  Wedekind  —  Suder 
mann,  the  inexhaustible  bottle  of  the  German 
theatre,  the  conjurer  who  imperturbably  pours 
out  any  flavour,  colour,  or  liquid  you  desire  from 
126 


his  bottle;  presto,  here  is  Ibsen,  or  Dumas,  or 
Hauptmann,  or  Sardou;  comedy,  satire,  trag 
edy,  farce,  or  the  marionettes  of  the  fashion 
able  world !  Frank  Wedekind  is  less  of  the 
stage  prestidigitator  and  more  sincere.  We  must, 
perforce,  listen  to  his  creatures  as  they  parade 
their  agony  before  us,  and  we  admire  his  clever 
rogues  —  the  never-to-be-forgotten  Marquis  of 
Keith  heads  the  list  —  and  smile  at  their  rough 
humour  and  wisdom.  For  me,  the  real  Frank 
Wedekind  is  not  the  prophet,  but  the  dramatist. 
As  there  is  much  of  his  stark  personality  in  his 
plays,  it  would  not  be  amiss  to  glance  at  his 
career. 

He  has  "a  long  foreground,"  as  Emerson 
said  of  Walt  Whitman.  He  was  born  at  Han 
over,  July  24,  1864,  and  consequently  was  only 
twenty-seven  years  old  when,  in  1891,  he  wrote 
his  most  original,  if  not  most  finished,  drama, 
Spring's  Awakening.  He  studied  law  four  terms 
at  Munich,  two  at  Zurich:  but  for  this  lawless 
soul  jurisprudence  was  not  to  be;  it  was  to 
fulfil  a  wish  of  his  father's  that  he  consented  to 
the  drudgery.  A  little  poem  which  has  been 
reproduced  in  leaflet  form,  Felix  and  Galathea, 
is  practically  his  earliest  offering  to  the  muse. 
Like  most  beginnings  of  fanatics  and  realists, 
it  fairly  swims  and  shimmers  with  idealism. 
His  father  dead,  a  roving  existence  and  a  pre 
carious  one  began  for  the  youthful  Frank.  He 
lived  by  his  wits  in  Paris  and  London,  learned 
two  languages,  met  that  underworld  which  later 
127 


FRANK  WEDEKIND 

was  to  figure  in  his  vital  dramatic  pictures, 
wrote  advertisements  for  a  canned  soup  —  in 
Hauptmann's  early  play,  Friedensfest,  Wede- 
kind  is  said  to  figure  as  Robert,  who  is  a  re 
clame  agent  —  was  attached  to  circuses,  variety 
theatres,  and  fairs,  was  an  actor  in  tingletangles, 
cabarets,  and  saw  life  on  its  seamiest  side, 
whether  in  Germany,  Austria,  France,  or  Eng 
land.  Such  experiences  produced  their  in 
evitable  reaction  —  disillusionment.  Finally  in 
1905  Director  Reinhardt  engaged  him  as  an  actor 
and  he  married  the  actress  Tilly  Niemann- 
Newes,  with  whom  he  has  since  lived  happily, 
the  father  of  a  son,  his  troubled  spirit  in  safe 
harbour  at  last,  but  not  in  the  least  changed, 
to  judge  from  his  play,  Franziska,  a  Modern 
Mystery. 

Personally,  Wedekind  was  never  an  extrava 
gant,  exaggerated  man.  A  sorrowful  face  in  re 
pose  is  his,  and  when  he  appeared  on  Hans  von 
Wolzogen's  Ueberbrettl,  or  sang  at  the  Munich 
cabaret  called  the  Eleven  Hangmen,  his  songs 
—  he  composes  at  times  —  Use,  Goldstiick, 
Brigitte  B,  Mein  Liebchen,  to  the  accompani 
ment  of  his  guitar,  there  was  a  distinct  indi 
viduality  in  his  speech  and  gesture  very  attrac 
tive  to  the  public. 

But  as  an  actor  Wedekind  is  not  distin 
guished,  though  versatile.  I've  only  seen  him 
in  two  roles,  as  Karl  Hetman  in  his  play  of 
Hidalla  (now  renamed  after  the  leading  role), 
and  as  Ernest  Scholtz  in  The  Marquis  of  Keith. 
128 


FRANK  WEDEKIND 

As  Jack  the  Ripper  in  The  Box  of  Pandora  I 
am  glad  to  say  that  I  have  not  viewed  him, 
though  he  is  said  to  be  a  gruesome  figure  dur 
ing  the  few  minutes  that  he  is  in  the  scene. 
His  mimetic  methods  recalled  to  me  the  sim 
plicity  of  Antoine  —  who  is  not  a  great  actor, 
yet,  somehow  or  other,  an  impressive  one.  Nat 
urally,  Wedekind  is  the  poet  speaking  his  own 
lines,  acting  his  own  creations,  and  there  is,  for 
that  reason,  an  intimate  note  in  his  interpreta 
tions,  an  indescribable  sympathy,  and  an  under 
scoring  of  his  meanings  that  even  a  much  su 
perior  actor  might  miss.  He  is  so  absolutely 
unconventional  in  his  bearing  and  speech  as  to 
seem  amateurish,  yet  he  secures  with  his  natur 
alism  some  poignant  effects.  I  shan't  soon  for 
get  his  Karl  Hetman,  the  visionary  reformer. 

Wedekind,  like  Heine,  has  the  faculty  of  a 
cynical,  a  consuming  self-irony.  He  is  said  to 
be  admirable  in  Der  Kammersanger.  It  must 
not  be  forgotten  that  he  has,  because  of  a  witty 
lampoon  in  the  publication  Simplicissimus,  done 
his  "little  bit"  as  they  say  in  penitentiary  social 
circles.  These  few  months  in  prison  furnished 
him  with  scenic  opportunities;  there  is  more  than 
one  of  his  plays  with  a  prison  set.  And  how  he 
does  lay  out  the  "system."  He,  like  Baudelaire, 
Flaubert,  and  De  Maupassant,  was  summoned 
before  the  bar  of  justice  for  outraging  public 
morals  by  the  publication  of  his  play,  The  Box 
of  Pandora,  the  sequel  to  Erdgeist.  He  had  to 
withdraw  the  book  and  expunge  certain  offensive 
129 


FRANK  WEDEKIND 

passages,  but  he  escaped  fine  and  imprisonment, 
as  did  his  publisher,  Bruno  Cassirer.  He  rewrote 
the  play,  the  second  act  of  which  had  been  origi 
nally  printed  in  French,  the  third  in  English, 
and  its  republication  was  permitted  by  the  sen 
sitive  authorities  of  Berlin. 

If  a  critic  can't  become  famous  because  of 
his  wisdom  he  may  nevertheless  attain  a  sort 
of  immortality,  or  what  we  call  that  elusive 
thing,  by  writing  himself  down  an  ass.  The 
history  of  critical  literature  would  reveal  many 
such.  Think  of  such  an  accomplished  practi 
tioner  as  the  late  M.  Brunetiere,  writing  as  he 
did  of  Flaubert  and  Baudelaire.  And  that 
monument  to  critical  ineptitude,  Degeneration, 
by  Max  Nordau.  A  more  modern  instance  is 
the  judgment  of  Julius  Hart  in  the  publication, 
Tag  (1901),  concerning  our  dramatist.  He 
wrote:  "In  German  literature  to-day  there  is 
nothing  as  vile  as  the  art  of  Frank  Wede- 
kind."  Fearing  this  sparkling  gem  of  criticism 
might  escape  the  notice  of  posterity,  Wedekind 
printed  it  as  a  sort  of  motto  to  his  beautiful 
poetic  play  (1902),  Such  Is  Life.  However,  the 
truth  is  that  our  poet  is  often  disconcerting. 
His  swift  transition  from  mood  to  mood  dis 
turbs  the  spectator,  especially  when  one  mood 
is  lofty,  the  next  shocking.  He  has  also  been 
called  "the  clown  of  the  German  stage,"  and 
not  without  reason,  for  his  mental  acrobatics, 
his  grand  and  lofty  tumblings  from  sheer  tran 
scendentalism  to  the  raw  realism,  his  elliptical 
130 


FRANK  WEDEKIND 

style,  are  incomprehensible  even  to  the  best 
trained  of  audiences.  As  Alfred  Kerr  rightfully 
puts  it,  you  must  learn  to  see  anew  in  the 
theatre  of  Wedekind.  All  of  which  is  correct, 
yet  we  respectfully  submit  that  the  theatre, 
like  a  picture,  has  its  optics:  its  foreground, 
middle  distance,  background,  and  foreshorten 
ing.  Destroy  the  perspective  and  the  stage  is 
transformed  into  something  that  resembles  star 
ing  post-Impressionist  posters.  The  gentle  arts 
of  development,  of  characterisation,  of  the  con 
duct  of  a  play  may  not  be  flouted  with  impu 
nity.  The  author  more  than  the  auditor  is 
the  loser.  Wedekind  works  too  often  in  bold, 
bright  primary  colours;  only  in  some  of  his 
pieces  is  the  modulation  artistic,  the  character- 
drawing  summary  without  being  harsh.  His 
climaxes  usually  go  off  like  pistol-shots.  Friih- 
lings  Erwachen  (1891),  the  touching  tale  of 
Spring's  Awakening  in  the  heart  of  an  innocent 
girl  of  fourteen,  a  child,  Gretchen,  doomed  to 
tragic  ending,  set  all  Germany  by  the  ears  when 
it  was  first  put  on  in  the  Kammerspielhaus,  Ber 
lin,  by  Director  Reinhardt  at  the  end  of  1906. 
During  fifteen  years  two  editions  had  been  sold, 
and  the  work  was  virtually  unknown  till  its 
stage  presentation.  Mr.  Shaw  is  right  in  say 
ing  that  if  you  wish  to  make  swift  propa 
ganda  seek  the  theatre,  not  the  pulpit,  nor  the 
book.  With  the  majority  Wedekind's  name  was 
anathema.  A  certain  minority  called  him  the 
new  Messiah,  that  was  to  lead  youth  into  the 


FRANK  WEDEKIND 

promised  land  of  freedom.  For  a  dramatist  all 
is  grist  that  makes  revolve  the  sails  of  his  ad 
vertising  mill,  and  as  there  is  nothing  as  lucra 
tive  as  notoriety,  Wedekind  must  have  been 
happy. 

He  is  a  hard  hitter  and  dearly  loves  a  fight  — 
a  Hibernian  trait  —  and  his  pen  was  soon  trans 
formed  into  a  club,  with  which  he  rained  blows 
on  the  ribs  of  his  adversaries.  That  he  was  a 
fanatical  moralist  was  something  not  even  the 
broadest-minded  among  them  suspected;  they 
only  knew  that  he  meddled  with  a  subject  that 
was  hitherto  considered  tacenda,  and  with  dire 
results.  Nowadays  the  thesis  of  Spring's  Awak 
ening  is  not  so  novel.  In  England  Mr.  H.  G. 
Wells  was  considerably  exercised  over  the  prob 
lem  when  he  wrote  in  The  New  Machiavelli 
such  a  startling  sentence  as  "Multitudes  of  us 
are  trying  to  run  this  complex,  modern  com 
munity  on  a  basis  of  'hush/  without  explaining 
to  our  children  or  discussing  with  them  any 
thing  about  love  or  marriage." 

I  find  in  Spring's  Awakening  a  certain  deli 
cate  poetic  texture  that  the  poet  never  suc 
ceeded  in  recapturing.  His  maiden  is  a  dewy 
creature;  she  is  also  the  saddest  little  wretch 
that  was  ever  wept  over  in  modern  fiction.  Her 
cry  when  she  confesses  the  worst  to  her  dazed 
mother  is  of  a  poignancy.  As  for  the  boys,  they 
are  interesting.  Evidently,  the  piece  is  an  au 
thentic  document,  but  early  as  it  was  composed 
it  displayed  the  principal  characteristics  of  its 
132 


FRANK  WEDEKIND 

author:  Freakishness,  an  abnormal  sense  of  the 
grotesque  —  witness  that  unearthly  last  scene, 
which  must  be  taken  as  an  hallucination  — 
and  its  swift  movement;  also  a  vivid  sense  of 
caricature  —  consider  the  trial  scene  in  the 
school;  but  created  by  a  young  poet  of  potential 
gifts.  The  seduction  scene  is  well  managed  at 
the  Kammerspielhaus.  We  are  not  shown  the 
room,  but  a  curtain  slightly  divided  allows  the 
voices  of  the  youthful  lovers  to  be  overheard.  A 
truly  moving  effect  is  thereby  produced.  Since 
the  performance  of  this  play,  the  world  all  over 
has  seen  a  great  light.  Aside  from  the  prefaces  of 
Mr.  Shaw  on  the  subject  of  children  and  their 
education,  plays,  pamphlets,  even  legislation 
have  dealt  with  the  theme.  A  reaction  was 
bound  to  follow,  and  we  do  not  hear  so  much 
now  about  "sex  initiation"  and  coeducation. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  Frank  Wedekind  was  the 
first  man  to  put  the  question  plumply  before  us 
in  dramatic  shape. 

A  favourite  one-act  piece  is  Der  Kammersanger 
(1899),  which  might  be  translated  as  The  Wag 
ner  Singer,  for  therein  is  laid  bare  the  soul  of  the 
Wagnerian  tenor,  Gerardo,  whose  one  week  visit 
to  a  certain  city  results  in  both  comedy  and  trag 
edy.  He  has  concluded  a  brilliantly  successful 
Gastspiel,  singing  several  of  the  Wagnerian  roles, 
and  when  the  curtain  rises  we  see  him  getting  his 
trunks  in  order,  his  room  at  the  hotel  filled  with 
flowers  and  letters.  He  must  sing  Tristan  the 
next  night  in  Brussels,  and  has  but  an  hour  to 


FRANK  WEDEKIND 

spare  before  his  train  departs.  If  he  misses  it  his 
contract  will  be  void,  and  in  Europe  that  means 
business,  tenor  or  no  tenor.  He  sends  the  ser 
vant  to  pack  his  costumes,  snatches  up  the 
score  of  Tristan,  and  as  he  hums  it,  he  is  aware 
that  some  one  is  lurking  behind  one  of  the  win 
dow-curtains.  It  is  a  young  miss,  presumably 
English  —  she  says:  "Oh,  yes"  —  and  she  con 
fesses  her  infatuation.  Vain  as  is  our  handsome 
singer  he  has  no  time  for  idle  flirtations.  He 
preaches  a  tonic  sermon,  the  girl  weeps,  prom 
ises  to  be  good,  promises  to  study  the  music 
of  Wagner  instead  of  his  tenors,  and  leaves 
with  a  paternal  kiss  on  her  brow.  The  com 
edy  is  excellent,  though  you  dimly  recall  a  little 
play  entitled:  Frederic  Lemaitre.  It  is  a  par 
tial  variation  on  that  theme.  But  what  follows 
is  of  darker  hue.  An  old  opera  composer  has 
sneaked  by  the  guard  at  the  door  and  begs 
with  tears  in  his  eyes  that  the  singer  will  listen 
to  his  music.  He  is  met  with  an  angry  refusal. 
Gradually,  after  he  has  explained  his  struggles 
of  a  half-century,  he,  the  friend  of  Wagner,  to 
secure  a  hearing  of  his  work,  the  tenor,  who  is 
both  brutal  and  generous,  consents,  though  he 
is  pressed  for  time.  Then  the  tragedy  of  ill 
luck  is  unfolded.  The  poor  musician  doesn't 
know  where  to  begin,  fumbles  in  his  score,  while 
the  tenor,  who  has  just  caught  another  woman 
behind  a  screen,  a  piano  teacher  —  here  we 
begin  to  graze  the  edge  of  burlesque  —  grows 
impatient,  finally  interrupts  the  composer,  and 


FRANK  WEDEKIND 

in  scathing  terms  tells  him  what  "art"  really 
means  to  the  world  at  large  and  how  useless 
has  been  his  sacrifice  to  that  idol  "art"  with 
a  capital  "A."  I  don't  know  when  I  ever  en 
joyed  the  exposition  of  the  musical  temperament. 
The  Concert,  by  Bahr,  is  mere  trifling  in  com 
parison,  all  sawdust  and  simian  gestures.  We 
are  a  luxury  for  the  bourgeois,  the  tenor  tells  his 
listener,  who  do  not  care  for  the  music  or  words 
we  sing.  If  they  realised  the  meanings  of  Wal- 
kiire  they  would  fly  the  opera-house.  We  sing 
ers,  he  continues,  are  slaves,  not  to  our  "art," 
but  to  the  public;  we  have  no  private  life. 

He  dismisses  the  old  man. 

Then  a  knock  at  the  door,  a  fresh  interrup 
tion.  This  time  it  is  surely  serious.  A  young, 
lovely  society  woman  enters.  She  has  been  his 
love  for  the  week,  the  understanding  being  that 
the  affair  is  to  terminate  as  it  began,  brusquely, 
without  arriere-pensee.  But  she  loves  Gerardo. 
She  clamours  to  be  taken  to  Brussels.  She  will 
desert  husband,  children,  social  position,  she 
will  ruin  her  future  to  be  with  the  man  she 
adores.  She  is  mad  with  the  despair  of  parting. 
He  is  inexorable.  He  gently  reminds  her  of 
their  agreement.  His  contract  does  not  permit 
him  to  travel  in  company  with  ladies,  nor  may 
he  scandalise  the  community  in  which  he  re 
sides.  Tenors,  too,  must  be  circumspect. 

She  swears  she  will  kill  herself.  He  smiles 
and  bids  her  remember  her  family.  She  does 
shoot  herself,  and  he  sends  for  a  policeman,  re- 

135 


FRANK  WEDEKIND 

membering  that  an  arrest  by  superior  force  will 
but  temporarily  abrogate  his  contract.  No  po 
liceman  is  found  by  the  distracted  hotel  ser 
vants,  and,  exclaiming:  "To-morrow  evening  I 
must  sing  Tristan  in  Brussels,"  the  conscien 
tious  artist  hurries  away  to  his  train,  leaving 
the  lifeless  body  of  his  admirer  on  the  sofa. 
Played  by  a  versatile  actor,  this  piece  ought  to 
make  a  success  in  America,  though  the  biting 
irony  of  the  dialogue  and  the  cold  selfishness 
of  the  hero  might  not  be  "sympathetic"  to  our 
sentiment-loving  audiences.  The  poet  has  pro 
tested  in  print  against  the  alteration  of  the  end 
of  this  little  piece,  i.  e.,  one  acting  version  made 
the  impassioned  lady  only  a  pretended  suicide, 
which  quite  spoils  the  motivation. 

Ibsen  must  have  felt  sick  when  such  an  ar 
tist  as  Duse  asked  him  to  let  her  make  Nora 
in  Doll's  House  return  to  her  family.  But  he 
is  said  to  have  consented.  Wedekind  consented, 
because  he  was  ill,  but  he  made  his  protest, 
and  justly  so. 

The  Marquis  of  Keith  is  a  larger  canvas. 
It  is  a  modern  rogues'  comedy.  Barry  Lyndon 
is  hardly  more  entertaining.  The  marquis  is  the 
son  of  an  humble  tutor  in  the  house  of  a  count 
whose  son  later  figures  as  Ernest  Scholtz.  The 
marquis  is  a  swindler  in  the  grand  manner.  He 
is  a  Get-Rich-Quick  Wallingford,  for  he  has 
lived  in  the  United  States,  but  instead  of  a  lively 
sketch  is  a  full-length  portrait  painted  by  a  mas 
ter.  You  like  him  despite  his  scampishness. 
136 


FRANK  WEDEKIND 

He  is  witty.  He  has  a  heart  —  for  his  own 
woes  —  and  seems  intensely  interested  in  all  the 
women  he  loves  and  swindles.  He  goes  to  Mu 
nich,  where  he  invents  a  huge  scheme  for  an 
exhibition  palace  and  fools  several  worthy  and 
wealthy  brewers,  but  not  the  powerful  Consul 
Casimir,  the  one  man  necessary  to  his  compre 
hensive  operation.  When  his  unhappy  wife  tells 
him  there  is  no  bread  in  the  house  for  the  next 
day,  he  retorts:  "Very  well,  then  we  shall  dine 
at  the  Hotel  Continental."  Nothing  depresses 
his  mercurial  spirits.  He  borrows  from  Peter 
to  pay  Paul,  and  an  hour  later  borrows  from 
Paul  to  pay  himself.  His  boyhood  friend  he 
simply  plunders.  This  Ernest,  in  reality  the 
Graf  von  Trautenau,  is  an  idealist  of  the  type 
that  Wedekind  is  fond  of  delineating.  He  would 
save  the  world  from  itself,  rescue  it  from  the 
morass  of  materialism,  but  he  relapses  into  a 
pathological  mysticism  which  ends  in  a  sanita 
rium  for  nervous  troubles.  The  marquis  is  a 
Mephisto;  he  is  not  without  a  trace  of  ideal 
ism;  altogether  a  baffling  nature,  Faust-like,  and 
as  chock-full  of  humour  as  an  egg  is  full  of 
meat.  He  goes  to  smash.  His  plans  are  check 
mated.  His  beloved  deserts  him  for  the  enemy. 
His  wife  commits  suicide.  His  life  threatened, 
and  his  liberty  precarious,  he  takes  ten  thousand 
marks  from  Consul  Casimir,  whose  name  he 
has  forged  in  a  telegram,  and  with  a  grin  starts 
for  pastures  new.  Will  he  shoot  himself  ?  No ! 
After  all,  life  is  very  much  like  shooting  the 

137 


FRANK  WEDEKIND 

chutes.  The  curtain  falls.  This  stirring  and 
technically  excellent  comedy  has  never  been  a 
favourite  in  Germany.  Perhaps  its  cynicism  is 
too  crass.  It  achieved  only  a  few  performances 
in  Berlin  to  the  accompaniment  of  catcalls, 
hisses,  and  derisive  laughter.  I  wonder  why? 
It  is  entertaining,  with  all  its  revelation  of  a 
rascally  mean  soul  and  its  shady  episodes. 

Space,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  forbids  me  from 
further  exposition  of  such  strong  little  pieces  as 
Musik,  a  heart-breaking  drama  of  a  betrayed 
girl  studying  singing  who  goes  to  jail  while  the 
real  offender,  the  man,  remains  at  liberty  (1907), 
or  of  Die  Zensur,  with  its  discussion  of  art  and 
religion  —  the  poet  intrudes  —  and  its  terrible 
cry  at  the  close:  "Oh,  God!  why  art  thou  so 
unfathomable  ?  "  Or  of  the  so-called  Lulu  trag 
edy  (Erdgeist  and  The  Box  of  Pandora)  of  which 
I  like  the  first  act  of  the  former  and  the  second 
act  of  the  latter  —  you  are  reminded  at  this 
point  of  the  gambling  scene  in  Sardou's  Fer- 
nande  —  but  as  I  do  not  care  to  sup  on  such 
unmitigated  horrors,  I  prefer  to  let  my  readers 
judge  for  themselves  from  the  printed  plays. 

Karl  Hetman  is  an  absorbing  play  in  which 
a  man  loses  the  world  but  remains  captain  of 
his  soul;  actually  he  ends  his  life  rather  than 
exhibit  himself  as  motley  to  the  multitude.  As 
a  foil  for  the  idealist  Hetman  —  who  is  a  sort 
of  inverted  Nietzsche;  also  a  self-portrait  in 
part  of  the  dramatist  —  there  is  the  self-seek 
ing  scamp  Launhart  who  succeeds  with  the  very 

138 


FRANK  WEDEKIND 

ideas  which  Hetman  couldn't  make  viable,  ideas 
in  fact  which  brought  about  his  disaster.  They 
are  two  finely  contrasted  portraits,  and  what  a 
grimace  of  disgust  is  aroused  when  Launhart 
tells  the  woman  who  loves  Hetman:  "O  Fanny, 
Fanny,  a  living  rascal  is  better  for  your  wel 
fare  than  the  greatest  of  dead  prophets."  What 
Dead-Sea-fruit  wisdom !  The  pathos  of  dis 
tance  doesn't  appeal  to  the  contemporary  soul 
of  Wedekind.  He  writes  for  the  young,  that  is, 
for  to-morrow. 

The  caprice,  the  bizarre,  the  morbid  in  Wede 
kind  are  more  than  redeemed  by  his  rich  hu 
manity.  He  loves  his  fellow  man  even  when 
he  castigates  him.  He  is  very  emotional,  also 
pragmatic.  The  second  act  of  his  Franziska,  a 
Karnevalgroteske,  was  given  at  the  Dresden 
Pressfestival,  February  7,  1913,  with  the  title 
of  Matrimony  in  the  Year  2000,  the  author  and 
his  wife  appearing  in  the  leading  roles  with 
brilliant  success.  It  contains  in  solution  the 
leading  motives  from  all  his  plays  and  his  phi 
losophy  of  life.  It  is  fantastic,  as  fantastic  as 
Strindberg's  Dream  Play,  but  amusing.  In  1914 
his  biblical  drama,  Simson  (Samson),  was  pro 
duced  with  mixed  success. 

Translated  Wedekind  would  lose  his  native 
wood-note  wild,  and  doubtless  much  of  his  dy 
namic  force  —  for  on  the  English  stage  he  would 
be  emasculated.  And  I  wonder  who  would 
have  the  courage  to  produce  his  works. 

Musik,  for  example,  if  played  in  its  entirety 

139 


FRANK  WEDEKIND 

might  create  a  profound  impression.  It  is  pa 
thetically  moving  and  the  part  of  the  unhappy 
girl,  who  is  half  crazy  because  of  her  passion  for 
her  singing-master,  is  a  role  for  an  accomplished 
actress.  If  the  public  can  endure  Brieux's  Dam 
aged  Goods,  why  not  Musik?  The  latter  is  a 
typical  case  and  is  excellent  drama;  the  French 
play  is  neither.  For  me  all  the  man  is  summed 
up  in  the  cry  of  one  of  his  characters  in  Erd- 
geist:  "Who  gives  me  back  my  faith  in  man 
kind,  will  give  me  back  my  life."  An  idealist, 
surely. 

The  last  time  I  saw  him  was  at  the  Richard 
Strauss  festival  in  Stuttgart,  October,  1912.  He 
had  changed  but  little  and  still  reminded  me  of 
both  David  Belasco  and  an  Irish  Catholic  priest. 
In  his  eyes  there  lurked  the  "dancing-madness" 
of  which  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  writes.  A 
latter-day  pagan,  with  touches  of  the  perverse, 
the  grotesque,  and  the  poetic;  thus  seems  to 
me  Frank  Wedekind. 


140 


VII 
THE  MAGIC  VERMEER 


WHO  owns  the  thirty-fifth  canvas  by  Jan 
Vermeer  of  Delft?  And  are  there  more  than 
thirty-five  works  by  this  master  of  cool,  clear 
daylight  ?  I  have  seen  nearly  all  the  pictures  at 
tributed  to  the  too  little  known  Dutchman,  and 
as  far  as  was  in  my  power  I  have  read  all  the 
critical  writings  by  such  experts  as  Havard, 
Obreen,  Bredius,  Hofstede  de  Groot  (Jan  Ver 
meer  van  Delft  en  Carel  Fabritius,  1907), 
Doctor  Bode,  Wauters,  Arsene  Alexandre,  G. 
Geoffrey,  Burger,  Taine,  John  Smith,  Gustave 
Vanzype,  and  several  others. 

Doctor  A.  Bredius  has  printed  an  article  en 
titled:  A  Pseudo- Vermeer  in  the  Berlin  gal 
lery,  which  I  have  not  been  able  to  procure, 
but  then  the  same  worthy  authority  has  con 
tested  the  authenticity  of  the  portrait  of  a  young 
man  in  the  Brussels  Museum.  It  is  not  signed, 
this  beautiful  head,  and  at  one  time  it  was  in 
the  English  collections  of  Humphry  Ward  and 
Peter  Norton,  and  later  in  the  Collection  Otlet 
at  Brussels.  Smith  catalogued  it  as  a  Rem 
brandt;  indeed,  it  had  the  false  signature  of 
141 


THE  MAGIC  VERMEER 

the  great  master.  Much  later  it  was  accredited 
to  Jan  Victoors,  a  Rembrandt  pupil,  and  to 
Nicolas  Maes,  and  under  this  name  was  sold 
in  Paris  in  1900.  A.  J.  Wauters  finally  declared 
it  a  Vermeer,  though  neither  Bredius  nor  Hof- 
stede  de  Groot  are  of  his  opinion.  And  now 
we  hear  the  question:  Who  owns  the  thirty- 
fifth  Vermeer,  Vermeer  of  the  magical  blue  and 
yellow  ? 

First  let  us  ask:  Who  was  Jan  Vermeer,  or 
Van  der  Meer?  "What  songs  did  the  sirens 
sing?"  puzzled  good  old  Sir  Thomas  Browne, 
and  we  know  far  more  about  William  Shake 
speare  or  Sappho  or  Memling  than  we  do  of  the 
enigmatic  man  from  Delft  who  died  a  double 
death  in  1675;  not  only  the  death  of  the  body, 
but  the  death  of  the  spirit,  of  his  immortal  art. 
For  several  centuries  he  was  not  accorded  the 
paternity  of  his  own  pictures.  To  Terburg, 
Pieter  de  Hooch,  Nicolas  Maes,  Metsu  they 
were  credited.  Even  the  glorious  Letter  Reader 
of  the  Dresden  gallery  has  been  attributed  to 
De  Hooch,  and  by  no  less  an  authority  than 
Charles  Blanc.  Fromentin,  of  all  men,  does  not 
mention  his  name  in  his  always  admirable  book 
on  the  art  of  the  Low  Countries;  no  doubt  one 
cause  for  his  neglect. 

This  is  precisely  what  we  know  of  Jan  Ver 
meer  of  Delft,  in  which  city  —  oddly  enough  — 
there  is  not  a  single  canvas  of  his.  In  1632  he 
was  born  there.  In  1653  he  married  Catherine 
Bolnes;  he  was  just  twenty-one  years  old.  His 
142 


THE  MAGIC  VERMEER 

admission  to  the  corporation  of  painters  as  a 
master  occurred  the  same  year,  as  the  books 
attest.  In  1662  he  was  elected  dean  of  the  cor 
poration,  and  again  in  1670.  In  1675  he  died, 
in  his  forty-third  year,  and  at  the  apogee  of  his 
powers. 

When  he  became  a  member  of  the  corpora 
tion  of  painters  at  Delft  he  could  not  pay  in 
full  the  initiation  fee,  six  florins,  and  he  gave 
on  account  one  florin  ten  cents  —  the  entry  in 
the  books  attests  this  astounding  fact.  He  was 
poor,  but  he  had  youth  and  genius,  and  he  loved. 

He  had  also  eight  or  ten  children  and  lived 
happily  —  as  do  most  people  without  a  history 
—  on  the  Oude  Langendyck,  where  he  became 
at  least  a  local  celebrity,  according  to  a  men 
tion  of  him  in  the  Journal  des  Voyages,  by 
Balthazar  de  Moncouys  (published  1665).  Mon- 
couys  also  recorded  another  interesting  fact. 
"At  Delft  I  saw  the  painter  Vermeer,"  he  writes, 
"  but  none  of  his  works  were  at  his  atelier;  at 
a  baker's  I  saw  a  figure  —  for  which  was  paid 
six  hundred  livres."  At  a  bakeshop  !  Vermeer, 
then,  literally  painted  for  his  bread. 

In  1696,  twenty  years  after  his  death,  certain  of 
his  works  (forty  in  the  catalogue)  brought  only 
100  florins,  pictures  that  to-day  are  worth  hun 
dreds  of  thousands  of  dollars.  And  in  1719  the 
superb  Milk  Girl,  now  in  the  Rijks  Museum, 
formerly  from  the  Six  Collection,  was  sold  for 
126  florins  (it  brought  $100,000  when  Mr.  Six 
sold  it  to  the  museum),  while  at  the  same  sale 


THE  MAGIC  VERMEER 

the  mediocre  Gerard  Dou  fetched  6,000  florins 
for  a  canvas.  Even  nowadays  the  public  has 
not  been  converted  to  the  idea  of  the  greatness 
of  Vermeer.  Go  any  time  of  the  day  into  the 
Mauritshuis  at  The  Hague  and  you  will  always 
discover  a  crowd  before  that  clumsy,  stupid  bull 
with  the  wooden  legs,  by  no  means  Paul  Pot 
ter's  masterpiece,  while  the  gem  of  The  Hague 
gallery,  the  View  of  Delft,  with  its  rich  pate, 
its  flowing  rhythms,  its  clear  daylight,  seldom 
draws  a  large  audience.  And  I  do  not  doubt 
that  only  the  propinquity  of  Rembrandt's 
Young  Saskia  to  Vermeer's  Merry  Company 
(otherwise  known  as  The  Courtesan)  in  the 
Dresden  gallery  attracts  an  otherwise  indiffer 
ent  public. 

In  1696  there  were  21  pictures  of  Vermeer 
sold  at  public  auction  in  Amsterdam.  Of  these 
21  the  experts  claim  to  have  discovered  16. 
But  the  bother  of  the  question  is  that  100  other 
pictures  were  also  sold  at  the  same  time;  fur 
thermore,  the  sale  is  said  to  have  taken  place 
after  the  death  of  a  venerable  mediocrity,  also 
named  Vermeer,  but  hailing  from  Haarlem. 
(He  died  in  1691.)  This  confusion  of  names 
may  have  had  something  to  do  with  the  ob 
scuring  of  the  great  Vermeer.  But  he  had  no 
vogue  in  1696,  as  the  prices  at  the  sale  prove 
only  too  well. 

Vanzype  gives  the  list,  and  its  importance  in 
any  research  of  the  Vermeer  pictures  is  para 
mount.  Here  are  the  21  canvases  that  are  ex- 
144 


THE  MAGIC  VERMEER 

tant,  and  the  prices  paid:  No.  i — A  young 
woman  weighing  gold,  155  florins;  2  — A  milk 
girl,  175  florins;  3  —  The  portrait  of  the  painter 
in  his  studio,  45  florins;  4  —  A  young  woman 
playing  the  guitar,  70  florins ;  5  —  A  gentleman 
in  his  chamber,  95  florins;  6  —  A  young  lady 
playing  the  clavecin,  with  a  gentleman  who  lis 
tens,  30  florins;  7  —  A  young  woman  taking  a 
letter  from  her  servant,  70  florins;  8  —  A  ser 
vant  who  has  drunk  too  much  asleep  at  a  table, 
62  florins;  9  —  A  merry  company,  73  florins; 
10  —  A  young  lady  and  a  gentleman  making 
music,  81  florins;  n  — A  soldier  with  a  laugh 
ing  girl,  44  florins;  12 — A  young  lacemaker, 
28  florins;  13  —  View  of  Delft,  200  florins;  14 
—  A  house  at  Delft,  72  florins;  15 — A  view 
of  some  houses,  48  florins;  16  —  A  young 
woman  writing,  63  florins;  17  —  A  young 
woman,  30  florins;  18  —  Young  woman  at  a 
clavecin,  42  florins;  19  —  A  portrait  in  an 
tique  costume,  36  florins;  20  and  21 — Two 
pendants,  34  florins. 

The  subsequent  history  of  these  pictures, 
while  too  copious  for  transcription  here,  may 
be  skeletonised.  This  may  answer  the  question 
posed  at  the  beginning  of  this  little  story.  Gus- 
tave  Vanzype  asks:  What  has  become  of  the 
young  woman  weighing  gold,  which  reappeared 
at  a  sale  in  the  year  1701,  which  Burger  thought 
he  had  found  in  the  canvas,  The  Weigher  of 
Gold.  And  the  Intoxicated  Servant  ?  The  latter 
is  in  the  Altaian  collection;  the  former  at  Phila- 


THE  MAGIC  VERMEER 

delphia,  in  Mr.  Widener's  gallery.  But  let  us  see 
how  the  wise  doctors  of  paint  dispute  among 
themselves.  How  many  Vermeers  are  there  in 
existence,  that  is,  known  to  the  world,  for  there 
may  be  others,  for  all  we  know,  hidden  in  the 
cabinets  of  collectors  or  sporting  other  names? 
Burger,  who  called  Vermeer  the  Sphinx  among 
artists,  has  generously  attributed  to  him  76  pic 
tures.  This  was  in  1866,  and  since  then  a  more 
savant  authority  has  reduced  the  number  to  40. 
Havard  admits  56.  The  Vermeer  of  Haarlem 
was  to  blame  for  this  swollen  catalogue.  Bre- 
dius  and  De  Groot  have  attenuated  the  list.  The 
Morgan  Vermeer  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum, 
a  Vermeer  of  first-class  quality,  is  not  in  some 
of  the  catalogues,  nor  is  the  Woman  Weighing 
Pearls,  now  in  the  possession  of  P.  A.  B.  Widener, 
of  Philadelphia,  to  be  found  accredited  to  Ver 
meer  in  Smith's  Catalogue  Raisonne.  But  not 
much  weight  can  be  attached  to  the  opinions  of 
the  earlier  critics  of  Vermeer.  For  them  he  was 
either  practically  unknown  or  else  an  imitator 
of  Terburg,  De  Hooch,  or  Mieris,  he  whose 
work  is  never  tight,  hard,  or  slippery. 

The  following  list  of  thirty-four  admittedly 
genuine  Vermeers  may  clear  up  the  mystery  of 
the  1696  sale  at  Amsterdam.  Remember  that 
the  authenticity  of  these  works  is  no  longer 
contested. 

In  Holland  at  The  Hague  there  are  four  Ver 
meers:  The  Toilette  of  Diana,  the  Head  of  a 
Young  Girl,  An  Allegory  of  the  New  Testament, 
146 


THE  MAGIC  VERMEER 

and  the  View  of  Delft.  At  the  Rijks  Museum, 
Amsterdam,  there  are  four:  The  Milk  Girl,  The 
Reader,  The  Letter,  and  A  Street  in  Delft. 
(This  latter  is  the  House  in  Delft,  which  sold 
for  seventy-two  florins  in  1696.)  In  Great 
Britain  in  the  Coats  collection  at  Castle  Skal- 
morlie  (Scotland)  there  is  Christ  at  the  House 
of  Martha  and  Mary.  In  the  National  Gallery, 
a  young  woman  standing  in  front  of  her  clavecin. 
In  the  Beit  collection,  London,  a  young  woman 
at  her  clavecin.  Collection  Salting,  London,  The 
Pianist.  Windsor  Castle,  The  Music  Lesson. 
Beit  collection,  A  Young  Woman  Writing.  In 
the  Joseph  collection,  A  Soldier  and  a  Laughing 
Girl.  And  the  Sleeping  Servant,  formerly  of  the 
Kann  collection,  Paris,  then  in  London,  and  later 
sold  to  Mr.  Altman.  In  Germany  we  find  the 
following:  At  the  Berlin  Museum,  The  Pearl 
Collar.  The  Drop  of  Wine,  in  the  same  mu 
seum,  Berlin.  The  Coquette,  Brunswick  Mu 
seum.  The  Lady  and  Her  Servant,  in  the  private 
collection  of  James  Simon,  Berlin.  The  Merry 
Company  and  The  Reader  in  the  Dresden  gallery. 
The  Geographer  at  the  Window,  in  the  Stadel 
Institute,  Frankfort.  In  France,  The  Astrono 
mer  of  the  A.  de  Rothschild  collection  at  Paris, 
and  the  little  Lacemaker,  in  the  Louvre  Gallery. 
In  Belgium,  there  was  at  Brussels  the  portrait  of 
a  girl,  which  was  formerly  in  the  Arenberg 
gallery.  When  I  tried  to  see  it  I  was  told  that  it 
had  been  sold  to  some  one  in  Germany.  Its  type, 
judging  from  the  head  of  a  girl  at  The  Hague, 


THE  MAGIC  VERMEER 

is  not  unlike  The  Geographer,  in  the  collection 
of  Viscount  Du  Bus  de  Gisegnies,  Brussels.  A 
Young  Girl,  collection  of  Jonkheer  de  Grez, 
Brussels.  This  last  was  discovered  by  Doc 
tor  Bredius  in  1906,  and  is  at  the  present 
writing  in  New  York  at  the  gallery  of  Mr. 
Knoedler. 

In  Austria-Hungary  there  are  two  noble  Ver- 
meers;  one  in  the  private  gallery  of  Count 
Czernin,  the  portrait  of  the  painter,  the  other 
in  the  Museum  of  Budapest,  the  portrait  of  a 
woman,  the  latter  as  solidly  modelled  as  any 
Hals  I  ever  viewed.  The  Czernin  Vermeer  is 
the  only  one  in  Vienna  (the  other  Vermeer  in 
this  gallery  is  by  Renesse).  It  is  a  masterpiece. 
In  it  he  grazes  perfection. 

The  United  States  is,  considering  the  brevity 
of  the  list,  well  off  in  Vermeers.  There  is  at 
Philadelphia  the  Mandoliniste  of  John  G.  John 
son  (without  doubt,  as  M.  Vanzype  points  out, 
the  Young  Woman  Playing  the  Guitar  of  the 
1696  sale).  At  Boston  Mrs.  John  Gardner  owns 
The  Concert.  At  the  Metropolitan  Museum 
there  is  the  Woman  with  the  Jug  (Marquand); 
and  the  Morgan  Letter  Writer;  H.  C.  Frick 
boasts  The  Singing  Lesson  (probably  known  at 
the  1696  sale  as  A  Gentleman  and  Young  Lady 
Making  Music). 

So  the  importance  of  the  1696  catalogue  is 
indisputable.  And  now,  after  wading  through 
this  dry  forest  of  figures  and  dates  and  hap 
hazard  or  dogmatic  attributions,  we  are  at  the 
148 


THE  MAGIC  VERMEER 

fatal  number,  thirty-four  —  only  thirty-four  au 
thentic  Vermeers  in  existence.  Some  one  must 
be  mistaken.  Who  owns  the  thirty-fifth  Ver- 
meer?  I  again  ask. 

II 

The  works  attributed  only  to  our  master  in 
the  list  compiled  by  M.  Vanzype  are  but  six: 
Portrait  of  a  Man,  at  the  Brussels  Museum; 
View  of  Delft,  in  the  collection  of  Michel  Van 
Gelder,  at  Uccle,  Brussels;  The  Lesson,  at  the 
National  Gallery,  London ;  the  Sleeping  Servant, 
Widener  collection,  Philadelphia  —  another  ver 
sion,  according  to  Burger-Thore;  Portrait  of  a 
Young  Man,  in  the  same  collection;  two  inte 
riors,  collection  Werner  Dahl  at  Diisseldorf  and 
collection  Matavansky  at  Vienna,  respectively. 
There  is  also  to  be  accounted  a  small  landscape 
in  the  Dresden  gallery,  a  Distant  View  of  Haar 
lem  (probably  by  Vermeer  of  Haarlem),  the 
Morgan  and  the  Widener  Vermeers.  To  deny 
the  authenticity  of  either  of  these  composi 
tions  would  be  to  fly  into  the  face  of  Vermeer 
himself.  I  have  enjoyed  the  privilege  and 
pleasure  of  viewing  the  Widener  Vermeers,  and 
I  believe  that  the  Sleeping  Servant  —  she  may 
not  be  intoxicated,  a  jug  on  the  table  being  the 
only  evidence;  certainly  her  features  are  placid 
enough;  besides,  Vermeer  did  not  indulge  in 
paintings  of  low  life  as  did  Teniers,  Ostrade,  or 
Jan  Steen  —  is  about  the  same  period  as  The 
149 


THE  MAGIC  VERMEER 

Merry  Company,  in  the  Dresden  gallery,  that 
is,  if  paint,  texture,  and  arrangement  of  still- 
life  be  any  criterion.  As  for  the  Woman  Weigh 
ing  Gold,  it  is  superb  Vermeer. 

There  is  little  danger  nowadays  of  any  other 
painter  being  saddled  with  the  name  of  Vermeer. 
It  is  usually  the  other  way  around,  as  we  have 
seen.  As  was  the  case  with  Diaz  and  Monti- 
celli,  so  has  it  been  with  Vermeer  and  De  Hooch, 
Vermeer  and  Terburg  (or  Ter  Borch).  I  have 
the  highest  admiration  for  the  vivacious  and 
veracious  work  of  these  two  other  men  —  pos 
sibly  associates  of  Vermeer.  Their  surfaces  are 
impeccably  rendered.  The  woman  playing  a 
bass  viol  in  the  Berlin  gallery  and  a  certain  in 
terior  in  the  National  Gallery  display  the  art  of 
representation  raised  to  the  highest  pitch;  real 
ism  can  go  no  further. 

The  psychology  of  a  painter's  household  is 
revealed  in  the  Count  Czernin  example  (1'A- 
telier  du  Peintre).  An  artist  sits  with  his  back 
to  us  and  on  his  canvas  he  broiders  the  image 
of  his  good  wife.  Again  the  miracle  is  repeated, 
"Let  there  be  light!"  Here  is  not  only  the 
subtle  equilibrium  between  man  and  the  things 
that  surround  him,  but  the  things  themselves  — 
flesh-tints,  drapery,  garbs,  polished  floor,  chairs, 
table,  and  wall  tapestry  —  are  saturated  with 
light;  absorbed  by  the  inert  matter  which  never 
theless  vibrates  and,  like  the  flesh-tones,  remains 
puissant  and  individual. 

Humanity  is  the  central  and  sounding  note 


THE  MAGIC  VERMEER 

of  his  art.  He  is  neither  a  pantheist  in  his  wor 
ship  of  sunshine,  nor  is  he  a  mystic  in  his  pur 
suit  of  shadows.  He  is  always  virile,  always 
tender,  never  trivial,  nor  coarse  —  an  aristocrat 
of  art. 

In  the  Dresden  Merry  Company,  and  a  large 
canvas  it  is  —  he  conies  to  grips  with  Rem 
brandt  in  the  matter  of  the  distribution  of  lights 
and  shades.  The  cavalier  at  the  left  of  the  pic 
ture  —  facing  it  —  with  the  cynical  smile,  is 
marvellously  depicted.  There  is  a  certain 
shadow  on  his  wide-margined  collar  which  also 
touches  the  lower  part  of  his  face  —  but  now 
we  are  nearing  the  region  of  transcendental  vir 
tuosity.  I  always  convince  myself  when  in  the 
presence  of  the  other  Dresden  Vermeer,  and  the 
greater  of  the  two,  that  this  young  Dutch  lady 
reading  a  letter  at  an  open  window  is  my 
favourite. 

And  now  it's  high  time  to  answer  my  ques 
tion:  Who  owns  the  thirty-fifth  Vermeer?  We 
stopped,  you  may  recall,  at  the  thirty-fourth, 
The  Singing  Lesson,  belonging  to  Mr.  Frick. 
That  would  give  the  thirty-fifth  to  the  Portrait 
of  a  Man  in  the  Brussels  Museum.  But  that  is 
a  contested  canvas,  while  the  Lesson  in  the 
National  Gallery  (not  the  young  woman  at  her 
clavecin,  a  genuine  Vermeer)  is  also  doubtful, 
say  the  experts. 

Setting  aside  the  two  interiors  and  the  sec 
ond  View  of  Delft  as  not  being  in  the  field  of 
the  authentic,  there  remain  the  Morgan  and  the 


THE   MAGIC   VERMEER 

Widener  Vermeers.  Which  of  the  pair  is  the 
thirty-fifth  Vermeer?  They  are  both  master 
pieces,  though  the  Morgan  is  blacker  and  has 
been  overcleaned. 

Since  writing  the  above  I  had  on  my  return 
to  America  the  pleasure  of  reading  Philip  L. 
Hale's  wholly  admirable  study  of  Vermeer, 
and  many  dark  places  were  made  clear;  es 
pecially  concerning  the  place  in  the  catalogue 
of  1696  of  the  Widener  picture,  Lady  Weighing 
Gold,  often  called  Lady  Weighing  Pearls,  be 
cause  there  are  pearls  on  the  table  about  to 
be  weighed.  Mr.  Hale,  who,  as  a  painter, 
knows  whereof  he  speaks,  styles  Vermeer  as 
"the  greatest  painter  who  ever  lived,"  and 
meets  all  the  very  natural  objections  to  such 
a  bold  statement.  Certainly  with  Velasquez 
and  Da  Vinci,  Vermeer  (the  three  V's)  is  the 
one  of  the  supreme  magicians  of  paint  in  the 
history  of  art.  Who  doubts  this  should  visit 
Berlin,  Dresden,  Vienna,  and  Amsterdam,  and 
for  ever  after  hold  his  peace. 


152 


VIII 

RICHARD  STRAUSS  AT 
STUTTGART 


AFTER  a  week  of  Richard  Strauss  at  Stutt 
gart  one  begins  to  entertain  a  profound  respect 
for  the  originality  of  Richard  Wagner.  And 
Wagner  during  his  embattled  career  was  liber 
ally  accused  of  plagiarism,  of  drawing  heavy 
drafts  upon  the  musical  banking  houses  of 
Beethoven,  Weber,  Marschner,  Schubert,  and 
how  many  others !  Indeed,  one  of  the  prime 
requisites  of  success  for  a  composer  is  to  be 
called  a  borrower  of  other  men's  ideas.  The 
truth  is  that  there  are  only  thirty-six  dramatic 
situations  and  only  seven  notes  in  the  scale, 
and  all  the  possible  permutations  will  not  pre 
vent  certain  figures,  melodic  groups,  or  musical 
moods  from  recurrence.  Therefore,  to  say  that 
Richard  Strauss  is  a  deliberate  imitator  of  Wag 
ner  would  be  to  restate  a  very  common  exag 
geration.  He  is  inconceivable  without  Wagner; 
nevertheless,  he  is  individual.  All  his  musical 
life  he  has  been  dodging  Wagner  and  sometimes 
he  succeeds  in  whipping  his  devil  so  far  around 

153 


RICHARD  STRAUSS  AT  STUTTGART 

the  stump  that  he  becomes  himself,  the  glori 
ous  Richard  Strauss  of  Don  Quixote,  of  Till 
Eulenspiegel,  of  Hero's  Life,  and  Elektra.  But 
it  may  be  confessed  without  much  fear  of  con 
tradiction  that  for  him  Wagner  is  his  model  — 
even  in  Salome,  where  the  head  of  John  the 
Baptist  is  chanted  to  the  tune  of  Donner's  mo 
tive  from  Rheingold. 

At  the  Stuttgart  festival,  in  1912,  which  en 
dured  a  week,  I  was  struck  by  the  Wagner  ob 
session  in  the  music  of  his  only  legitimate  suc 
cessor.  To  alter  an  old  quotation,  we  may  say: 
He  who  steals  my  ideas  steals  trash:  ideas  are 
as  cheap  and  plentiful  as  potatoes  in  season; 
but  he  who  steals  my  style  takes  from  me 
the  only  true  thing  I  possess.  Now,  Richard 
Strauss  in  addition  to  being  a  master  of  form, 
rather  of  all  musical  forms,  is  also  the  master- 
colourist  of  the  orchestra.  No  one,  not  even 
Wagner,  o'ertops  him  in  this  respect,  though 
Wagner  and  Berlioz  and  Liszt  showed  him  the 
way.  Why,  then,  does  he  lean  so  heavily  on 
Wagner,  not  alone  on  his  themes  —  for  Strauss 
is,  above  all,  a  melodist  —  but  on  his  moods; 
in  a  word,  the  Wagnerian  atmosphere  ?  I  noted 
that  wherever  a  situation  analogous  to  one  in 
the  Wagnerian  music-drama  presented  itself  the 
music  of  the  protean  younger  Richard  was  col 
oured  by  memories  of  the  elder  composer.  For 
example,  in  Ariadne  at  Naxos,  the  heroine  is 
discovered  outstretched  on  her  island  in  the 
very  abandonment  of  despair.  We  hear  faint 

154 


RICHARD   STRAUSS  AT  STUTTGART 

echoes  of  the  last  pages  of  Tristan  and  Isolde; 
no  sooner  do  three  women  begin  to  sing  than 
is  conjured  up  a  vision  (aural,  of  course)  of  the 
Rhine  maidens.  In  Feuersnot  the  legendary 
tone  was  unavoidable,  yet  there  is  too  much  of 
Die  Meistersinger  in  this  early  work.  Does  a 
duenna  appear  with  the  heroine,  at  once  you 
are  reminded  of  Eva  and  Magdalena;  and  in 
the  balcony  scene,  so  different  in  situation  from 
Lohengrin,  Elsa  nevertheless  peers  from  behind 
the  figure  of  Diemut.  As  for  the  lovers,  Kun- 
rad  and  Diemut,  they,  taking  advantage  of  the 
darkness,  as  Mr.  Henderson  once  remarked  of 
another  opera,  Azrael,  appropriated  the  musical 
colour  —  let  me  put  the  case  mildly  —  of  the 
duo  of  Walther  and  Eva.  Wagner  dead  re 
mains  the  imperious  tyrant,  a  case  of  musical 
mortmain,  the  lawyers  would  put  it;  a  hand 
reaching  from  his  grave  dictating  the  doings  of 
the  living.  The  great  chorus  in  Feuersnot,  after 
the  fires  are  extinguished,  because  of  the  Albe- 
rich-like  curse  of  Kunrad,  is  not  without  sugges 
tions  from  the  street  fight  in  Die  Meistersinger, 
and  the  wild  wailings  of  the  Walkyrie  brood. 
Thus,  if  you  are  looking  for  reminiscences,  I 
know  of  few  composers  whose  work,  vast  and 
varied  as  it  is,  will  afford  such  chances  of  spear 
ing  a  Wagner  motive  as  it  appears  for  a  mo 
ment  on  the  swift  and  boiling  stream  of  the 
Strauss  orchestral  narration.  But  if  you  have 
attained  the  age  of  discretion  you  will  not  ask 
too  much,  forget  such  childish  and  sinister  play, 

155 


RICHARD  STRAUSS  AT  STUTTGART 

and  enjoy  to  the  full  the  man's  extraordinary 
gift  of  music-making. 

For  Richard  Strauss  is  an  extraordinary  mu 
sician.  To  begin  with,  he  doesn't  look  like  a 
disorderly  genius  with  rumpled  hair,  but  is  the 
mildest-mannered  man  who  ever  scuttled  an 
other's  score  and  smoked  Munich  cigars  or 
played  "skat."  And  then  he  loves  money! 
What  other  composer,  besides  Handel,  Haydn, 
Mozart  —  yes,  and  also  Beethoven  —  Gluck, 
Meyerbeer,  Verdi,  Puccini,  so  doted  on  the  box- 
office  ?  Why  shouldn't  he  ?  Why  should  he  en 
rich  the  haughty  music  publisher  or  the  still 
haughtier  intendant  of  the  opera-house?  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  if  R.  Strauss  were  in  such  a 
hurry  to  grow  rich,  he  would  write  music  of  a 
more  popular  character.  It  would  seem,  then, 
that  he  is  a  millionaire  malgre  lui,  and  that,  no 
matter  what  he  writes,  money  flows  into  his 
coffers.  Indeed,  an  extraordinary  man.  De 
spite  his  spiritual  dependence  upon  Wagner,  and 
in  his  Tone-Poems,  upon  Liszt  and  Berlioz,  he 
has  a  very  definite  musical  personality.  He  has 
amplified,  intensified  the  Liszt-Wagner  music, 
adding  to  its  stature,  also  exaggerating  it  on  the 
purely  sensuous  side.  That  he  can  do  what  no 
other  composer  has  done  is  proved  by  the  score 
of  his  latest  opera  Ariadne  at  Naxos,  given  for 
the  first  time  in  Stuttgart.  Here,  with  only 
thirty-six  in  the  orchestra,  a  grand  pianoforte 
and  a  harmonium  included,  he  produces  the 
most  ear-ravishing  tones,  thus  giving  a  nega- 

156 


RICHARD   STRAUSS  AT  STUTTGART 

tive  to  those  who  assert  that  without  a  gigantic 
orchestral  apparatus  he  is  ineffectual.  Strauss 
received  a  sound  musical  education;  he  could 
handle  the  old  symphonic  form,  absolute  music, 
before  he  began  writing  in  the  vein  modern; 
his  evolution  has  been  orderly  and  consistent. 
He  looked  before  he  leaped.  His  songs  prove 
him  to  be  a  melodist,  the  most  original  since 
Brahms  in  this  form.  Otherwise,  originality 
is  conditioned.  He  is,  for  instance,  not  as 
original  as  Claude  Debussy,  who  has  actually 
said  something  new.  Strauss,  a  rhetorician  with 
enormous  temperamental  power,  modifies  the 
symphonic  form  of  Liszt,  boils  down  the  Wag- 
nerian  trilogy  into  an  hour  and  thirty  minutes 
of  seething,  white-hot  passion,  and  paints  all  the 
moods,  human  and  inhuman,  with  incompar 
able  virtuosity.  It  is  a  question  of  manner 
rather  than  matter.  He  is  even  a  greater  vir 
tuoso  than  Hector  Berlioz,  and  infinitely  more 
tender;  he  is  Meyerbeer  in  his  opportunism, 
but  there  the  comparison  may  be  dropped,  for 
old  Meyerbeer  could  shake  tunes  out  of  his 
sleeve  with  more  facility  than  does  Strauss  — 
and  that  is  saying  a  lot.  No,  the  style  of 
Strauss  is  his  own,  notwithstanding  his  borrow 
ings  from  Liszt  and  Wagner.  He  is  not  as  orig 
inal  as  either  one,  for  he  employs  them  both  as 
his  point  of  departure;  but  when  you  begin  to 
measure  up  the  power,  the  scope,  and  the  ver 
satility  of  his  productions  you  are  filled  with  a 
wholesale  admiration  for  the  almost  incredible 

157 


RICHARD  STRAUSS  AT  STUTTGART 

activity  of  the  man,  for  his  ambitions,  his  mar 
vellous  command  of  every  musical  form,  above 
all,  for  his  skill  as  a  colourist. 

Sometimes  he  hits  it  and  sometimes  he  doesn't. 
After  two  hearings  of  Ariadne  at  Naxos  in  the 
smaller  of  the  two  new  royal  opera-houses  at 
Stuttgart,  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  both 
composer  and  librettist,  while  greatly  daring, 
had  attempted  the  impossible,  and  therefore 
their  work,  despite  its  many  excellencies,  missed 
fire.  In  the  first  place,  Herr  Hugo  von  Hof- 
mannsthal,  the  poet  of  Elektra  and  Der  Roser- 
cavalier,  conceived  the  unhappy  idea  that  Mo- 
liere's  Le  Bourgeois  Gentilhomme  might  be 
butchered  to  make  a  Straussian  holiday  and 
serve  merely  as  a  portico  for  the  one-act  opera 
that  follows.  But  the  portico  turned  out  to  be 
too  large  for  the  operatic  structure.  The  dove 
tailing  of  play  and  music  is  at  best  a  perilous 
proceeding.  Every  composer  knows  that.  To 
give  two  acts  of  spoken  Moliere  (ye  gods!  and 
spoken  in  German)  with  occasional  interludes 
of  music,  and  then  top  it  off  with  a  mixture  of 
opera  seria  and  commedia  del  arte,  is  to  invite 
a  catastrophe.  To  be  sure,  the  unfailing  tact 
of  Strauss  in  his  setting  of  certain  episodes  of 
the  Moliere  play  averted  a  smash-up,  but  not 
boredom.  In  the  second  place,  the  rather  heavy 
fooling  of  the  actors,  excellent  artists  all,  made 
Moliere  as  dull  as  a  London  fog.  The  piece  is 
over  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  old;  it  must  be 
played  by  French  actors,  therefore  in  the  German 

158 


RICHARD  STRAUSS  AT  STUTTGART 

version  sadly  suffers.  I  hear  that  it  has  been 
still  further  cut  down,  and  at  the  present  writ 
ing  there  is  some  gossip  to  the  effect  that  Ari 
adne  will  be  sung  some  day  without  the  trun 
cated  version  of  Moliere  by  the  ingenious  Herr 
Hofmannsthal. 


II 

At  the  general  rehearsal,  the  night  before  the 
opening,  which  was  attended  by  the  musical 
elite  of  Europe  (whatever  that  may  mean), 
poets,  critics,  managers,  composers,  princely 
folk,  musical  parasites,  and  other  east  winds, 
as  Nietzsche  has  it,  the  performance  went  on 
leaden  feet.  The  acting  of  Victor  Arnold  (Ber 
lin)  as  prosy  old  Jourdain  just  bordered  on  the 
burlesque;  Camilla  Eibenschiitz,  not  unknown 
to  New  York,  cleared  the  air  with  her  unaf 
fected  merriment.  Strauss,  after  a  delightful 
overture  in  the  rococo  manner  of  Gretry,  con 
tributes  some  fascinating  dance  measures,  a 
minuetto,  a  polonaise,  a  gavotte,  and  a  march. 
The  table-music  is  wholly  delightful.  A  bril 
liant  episode  is  that  of  the  fencing-master,  who 
is  musically  pictured  by  a  trumpet  and  piano 
forte  (with  Max  von  Pauer  at  the  keyboard). 
Nothing  could  be  more  dazzling.  You  hear  the 
snapping  of  the  foil  in  the  hand  of  the  trucu 
lent  bully.  The  music  that  accompanies  the 
tailor  is  capital,  as  are  also  the  two  dances  — 
parodies  of  the  dances  in  Salome  and  Elektra 

159 


RICHARD   STRAUSS  AT  STUTTGART 

—  for  the  kitchen  boy,  who  leaps  out  of  a  huge 
omelette  (like  the  pie-girl  years  ago  in  naughty 
New  York),  and  for  a  tailor's  apprentice.  These 
were  both  danced  with  seductive  charm  by  the 
youthful  Grete  Wiessenthal  (Vienna),  and  were 
the  bright  particular  spot  of  the  play. 

After  a  transition,  not  particularly  well  done, 
the  curtains  part  and  disclose  a  stage  upon  a 
stage,  a  problematic  question  under  the  most 
favourable  conditions.  Herr  Jourdain  makes 
by-remarks  and  interrupts  the  mimic  opera. 
It  is  all  as  antique  as  the  clown  at  the  circus. 
Finally  the  opera  gets  under  way  and  Ariadne 
publishes  her  views.  Von  Hofmannsthal's  fig 
ure  of  the  deserted  lady  is  not  a  particularly 
moving  one.  Naturally,  much  must  be  allowed 
for  the  obviously  artificial  character  of  the 
piece.  Max  Reinhardt,  maker  of  stagecraft 
and  contriver  of  "atmosphere,"  has  caught  the 
exact  shades.  In  the  dinner  scene  of  the  play 
his  stage  was  chastely  beautiful.  In  the  gaudy 
foliage  of  the  exotic  island,  with  the  three  chan 
deliers  of  a  bygone  epoch,  the  sharp  disso 
nance  of  styles  is  indicated.  Aubrey  Beardsley 
would  have  rejoiced  at  this  mingling  of  genres; 
at  the  figures  of  Harlequin,  Scaramuccio;  at 
the  quaint  and  gorgeous  costuming;  at  the 
Dryad,  Naiad,  Echo,  and  all  the  rest  of  seven 
teenth-century  burlesque  appanage.  And  yet 
things  didn't  go  as  they  should  have  gone. 
The  music  is  sparkling  for  the  minor  characters, 
and  for  Zerbinetta  Strauss  has  planned  an  aria, 
1 60 


RICHARD  STRAUSS  AT  STUTTGART 

the  coloratura  of  which  was  to  have  made  Mo 
zart's  famous  aria  for  the  Queen  of  Night  seem 
like  thirty  cents.  (I  quote  the  exact  phrase  of 
an  over-seas  admirer.)  Well,  if  Mozart's  music 
is  worth  thirty  cents,  then  the  Zerbinetta  aria 
is  worth  five;  that  is  the  proportion.  The  fact 
is  the  composer  burlesques  the  old-fashioned 
scene  and  air  with  trills  and  other  vocal  pyro 
technics,  but  overdoes  the  thing.  Frieda  Hem- 
pel  was  to  have  sung  the  part  and  did  not. 
Margarethe  Siems  (Dresden)  could  not.  She 
was  as  spiritless  as  corked  champagne.  To  give 
you  an  idea  of  the  clumsy  humour  of  the  aria  it 
is  only  necessary  to  relate  that  in  the  middle  of 
the  music  the  singer  comes  down  to  the  foot 
lights,  points  to  her  throat,  tells  the  conductor 
that  she  is  out  of  breath,  that  she  must  have 
breathing  time  if  she  is  to  go  on.  At  the  general 
rehearsal  this  vaudeville  act  found  no  favour  and 
the  singer  was  without  doubt  vocally  distressed. 
An  ominous  noise  from  the  direction  of  the  con 
ductor's  desk  (Strauss  himself)  caused  her  some 
embarrassment.  She  eventually  got  under  way, 
leaving  the  audience  in  doubt  as  to  the  success 
of  the  experiment  —  the  score  shows  that  it  is  all 
in  deadly  earnest.  But  the  foot-stamping  of 
Strauss  and  his  remarks  reminded  me  of  Gum- 
precht's  description  of  Liszt's  B-minor  Sonata 
as  the  Invitation  to  Hissing  and  Stamping. 
Zerbinetta's  vocal  flower-garden  must  be  shorn 
of  many  roses  and  lilies  before  it  will  be  shapely. 
Mizzi  Jeritza  (what  ingratiating  names  they 
161 


RICHARD  STRAUSS  AT  STUTTGART 

have  in  Vienna!)  was  the  first  Ariadne.  In  ad 
dition  to  being  heartbroken  over  the  perfidy 
of  Theseus  she  was  scared  to  death.  It  took 
some  time  before  her  voice  grew  warm,  her  act 
ing  less  stiff.  Her  new  wooer,  Hermann  Jad- 
lowker  (Vienna),  was  the  Bacchus.  As  you 
have  seen  and  heard  him  in  New  York,  I  need 
hardly  add  that  he  didn't  "look"  the  part, 
though  he  sang  with  warmth.  The  three  Rhine 
maidens  on  dry  land  were  shrill  and  out  of  tune. 
But  for  the  life  of  me  I  couldn't  become  inter 
ested  in  the  sorrow  and  ecstasy,  chiefly  meta 
physical,  of  this  pair.  The  scheme  is  too  re 
mote  from  our  days  and  ways.  These  young 
persons  were  make-believe,  after  all,  and  while 
they  sonorously  declaimed  their  passion  —  hers 
for  a  speedy  death,  his  for  the  new  life  —  under 
a  canopy  with  mother-of-pearl  lining  (Reinhardt, 
too,  can  be  very  Teutonic),  I  didn't  believe  in 
them,  and,  I  fear,  neither  did  Strauss.  He  has 
written  sparkling  music,  Offenbachian  music, 
rainbow  music  and  music  sheerly  humouristic, 
yet  the  entire  production  reminded  one  of  a 
machine  that  wouldn't  work  at  every  point. 

There  were  three  performances  besides  the 
general  rehearsal  given  at  the  low  price  of  fifty 
marks  (twelve  dollars  and  fifty  cents)  a  perform 
ance.  One  of  the  jokes  of  Strauss  is  to  make 
music-critics  pay  for  their  seats.  Screams  of 
agony  were  heard  all  over  the  Continent  as  far 
north  as  Berlin,  as  far  south  as  Vienna.  A 
music-critic  dearly  hates  to  pay  for  a  ticket. 
162 


RICHARD   STRAUSS  AT  STUTTGART 

Hence  the  Till  Eulenspiegel  humour  of  R. 
Strauss.  Hence  the  numerous  "roasts"  all  his 
new  works  receive.  He  is  the  most  unpopular 
composer  alive  with  the  critical  confraternity. 
No  wonder.  I  simply  glory  in  him.  Talk  about 
blood  from  a  stone !  Strauss  always  makes 
money,  even  when  his  operas  do  not.  Stutt 
gart,  most  charming  of  residency  cities  (it  holds 
over  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  souls), 
was  so  crowded  when  I  arrived  that  I  was  glad 
I  had  taken  the  hint  of  a  friend  and  engaged  a 
room  in  advance.  The  place  simply  overflowed 
with  strangers.  Certainly,  I  thought,  they  order 
these  things  better  in  Germany,  and  was  elated 
because  of  the  enthusiasm  openly  displayed  over 
Strauss  and  the  two  noble  opera-houses.  All 
for  Strauss?  Alas!  no.  The  Gordon  Bennet 
balloon  contest  had  attracted  the  majority,  and 
until  it  was  fought  and  done  for  there  was  no 
comfort  to  be  had  in  cafe,  restaurant,  or  hotel. 

Ill 

The  performances  of  earlier  Strauss  works 
were  in  the  main  well  attended.  Oddly  enough 
the  poorest  house  —  and  it  was  far  from  empty 
—  was  that  of  The  Rosecavalier.  Possibly  be 
cause  the  composer  had  gone  over  to  Tubingen 
to  conduct  a  concert  there  (he  always  makes 
hay  while  the  Strauss  shines),  there  was  so 
little  enthusiasm  displayed;  possibly  also  be 
cause  Max  Schillings  conducted.  He  is  an  ex- 
163 


RICHARD  STRAUSS  AT  STUTTGART 

cellent  composer,  a  practical  conductor,  but  he 
couldn't  extract  the  "ginger"  in  the  score  —  and 
it's  full  of  it,  full  of  fire,  of  champagne,  of  dreamy 
sentiment  and  valses  that  would  turn  gray  with 
envy  the  hair  of  Johann  Strauss  if  he  hadn't 
thought  of  them  before  his  namesake  Richard. 
I  didn't  grow  enthusiastic  over  the  Stuttgart 
production,  mainly  a  local  affair.  The  honours 
of  the  evening  rightfully  belonged  to  Alwin 
Swoboda,  who  looked  like  De  Wolf  Hopper,  but 
sang  a  trifle  better.  A  favourite  there  is  Ira- 
cema-Brugelmann;  another,  Erna  Ellmenreich. 
One  can  sing,  but  acts  amateurishly;  the  other 
screams,  but  is  a  clever  actress.  In  Salome  she 
was  wonderful,  singing  out  of  tune  as  she  often 
did.  Her  pose  was  hieratic  as  a  sphinx  when 
she  watched  the  antics  of  the  neurasthenic 
Herod.  And  her  dance  was  one  of  the  best  I 
have  yet  seen,  though  Aino  Acte's  is  said  to 
rank  them  all.  Wittich,  Krull,  Destinn,  Rose, 
Walther,  Acte,  not  one  of  them  ever  sang  as 
sang  Olive  Fremstad  at  that  memorable  dress 
rehearsal  of  a  certain  Sunday  morning  in  the 
Metropolitan  Opera-House.  Vocally  she  was 
the  Salome  of  Richard  Strauss,  and  she  was 
lovely  to  behold.  Salome  herself  should  be  a 
slight,  cynical  young  person  —  half  Flaubert, 
half  Laforgue.  Under  Strauss  the  Salome  is 
neither  impossible  nor  vulgar.  Very  intense,  an 
apparition  rather  than  a  human,  she  sounds  the 
violet  rays  of  eroticism  (if  I  may  be  forgiven 
such  a  confusion  of  terms,  of  such  a  mixed 
164 


RICHARD  STRAUSS  AT  STUTTGART 

metaphor).  Another  thing:  the  tempi  were  dif 
ferent  from  Campanini's  —  i.  e.,  the  plastic 
quality  of  the  reading  gave  us  new  colours, 
new  scents,  new  curves.  Strauss  is  careless 
when  he  directs  the  works  of  others,  but  with 
his  own  he  is  all  devotion.  Take  Elektra,  for 
instance. 

But  I  must  finish  my  Salome  budget.  The 
Herod  was  not  the  actor  that  was  Karl  Bur- 
rian,  but  he  sang  better.  His  name  is  Josef 
Tyssen.  The  John  was  Herman  Weil.  Salome 
was  preceded  by  Feuersnot,  the  folks-tone  of 
which  is  an  admirable  foil  to  the  overladen  tints 
of  Salome.  (By  the  way,  the  sky  in  the  latter 
opera  showed  the  dipper  constellation,  Charles's 
Wain.  Now,  will  some  astronomer  tell  us  if  such 
a  thing  is  possible  in  Syrian  skies?)  Herman 
Weil  was  the  chief  point  of  attraction.  As  for 
the  so-called  immoral  ending  of  the  composition, 
discovered  by  amateur  critical  prudes,  to  be 
forthright  in  my  speech,  it  is  all  nonsense:  it 
doesn't  exist.  But  Wolzogen  doesn't  follow  the 
lines  of  the  Famine  of  Fire.  His  is  a  love  scene 
with  a  joke  for  relief.  The  music  is  ultra- Wag- 
nerian,  the  finale  genuine  Strauss,  with  its  swell 
ing  melos,  its  almost  superhuman  forcing  of  the 
emotional  line  to  the  ecstatic  point. 

In  Elektra,  with  the  composer  conducting,  I 
again  marvelled  at  the  noisy,  ineffective  "read 
ing"  of  a  Hammerstein  conductor,  whose  name 
I've  forgotten.  Yet  New  York  has  seen  the  best 
of  Elektras,  Mme.  Mazarin — would  that  she  had 

165 


RICHARD  STRAUSS  AT  STUTTGART 

sung  and  danced  here  in  Stuttgart !  She  might 
have  surprised  the  composer  —  but  New  York 
is  yet  to.  hear  Elektra  as  music-drama.  Thus 
far  I  think  (and  it's  only  one  man's  opinion) 
that  Strauss  will  endure  because  of  his  Till 
Eulenspiegel,  Don  Quixote,  and  Elektra.  The 
mists  are  gathering  over  the  other  works;  Sal 
ome  is  too  theatrical,  Feuersnot  a  pasticcio  of 
Wagner,  Guntram  is  out  of  the  question  (for 
ten  years  I've  used  it  to  sit  on  when  I  played 
Bach's  C-major  invention),  and  even  the  mighty 
major-minor  opening  of  Also  Sprach  Zarathus- 
tra  begins  to  pall.  But  not  Don  Quixote,  so 
full  of  irony,  humour,  and  pathos;  not  Elektra, 
in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word  a  melodrama, 
and  certainly  not  the  prankish  and  ever  inimi 
table  Till  Eulenspiegel.  These  abide  by  one, 
whereas  the  head  in  Salome  has  become  vieux 
chapeau.  When  Ellmenreich  sang  to  it  that 
night  it  might  have  been  a  succulent  boar's  head 
on  a  platter  for  all  the  audience  cared.  (I  fancy 
they  would  have  preferred  the  boar  to  the 
saint — deadliest  of  all  operatic  bores,  for  ever 
intoning  a  variant  of  the  opening  bars  of  the 
Fidelio  overture.) 

But  the  Stuttgart  Elektra  performance  will 
live  long  in  my  memory,  but  not  because  of 
the  lady  who  assumed  the  title  role,  Idenka 
Fassbender,  of  Munich.  (She  is  not  to  be  com 
pared  with  the  epileptic  Mazarin  for  a  moment. 
She  is  not  Elektra  vocally  or  histrionically.) 
The  artiste  of  the  evening  was  Anna  von  Mil- 
166 


RICHARD  STRAUSS  AT  STUTTGART 

denburg  (Vienna),  the  wife  of  Herman  Bahr, 
novelist  and  playwright,  best  known  to  Amer 
ica  as  the  author  of  The  Concert,  one  of  David 
Belasco's  productions.  The  Mildenburg  is  a 
giantess,  with  a  voice  like  an  organ.  She  is  also 
an  uneven  singer,  being  hugely  temperamental. 
The  night  in  question  she  was  keyed  up  to  the 
occasion,  and  for  the  first  time  I  realised  the 
impressiveness  of  the  part  of  Klytemnestra,  its 
horrid  tragic  force,  its  abnormal  intensity,  its  ab 
solute  revelation  of  the  abomination  of  deso 
lation.  Mildenburg  played  it  as  a  mixture  of 
Lady  Macbeth  and  Queen  Gertrude,  Hamlet's 
mother.  And  when  she  sang  fortissimo  all  the 
Strauss  horses  and  all  the  Strauss  men  were  as 
supine,  tonally  speaking,  as  Humpty  Dumpty. 
Her  voice  is  of  a  sultry  tonal  splendour. 

The  two  new  opera-houses  • —  also  theatres  — 
are  set  in  a  park,  as  should  be  art  and  opera 
houses.  Facing  the  lake  is  the  larger,  a  build 
ing  of  noble  appearance,  with  a  capacity  for 
i  ,400  persons  seated.  The  smaller  building  only 
holds  800,  but  it  looks  as  big  as  the  old  New- 
York  Sub-Treasury,  and  is  twice  as  severe.  Max 
Reinhardt  calls  the  Hof-Oper  the  most  beautiful 
in  Europe.  He  is  not  exaggerating.  A  round 
7,000,000  marks  (about  $1,750,000)  was  the  cost 
of  the  buildings.  His  Majesty  Wilhelm  II,  a  lib 
eral  and  enlightened  monarch,  dipped  heavily 
into  his  private  bank  account.  Stuttgart,  ac 
cording  to  the  intendant,  Graf  zu  Putlitz,  must 
become  the  leading  operatic  and  art  city  in  Ger- 
167 


RICHARD  STRAUSS  AT  STUTTGART 

many.  The  buildings  are  there,  but  not  yet  the 
singers.  Dresden  boasts  its  opera,  and  Berlin 
has  better  singers.  Nevertheless,  the  pretty 
city,  surrounded  by  villa-crowned  hills,  is  to  be 
congratulated  on  such  classic  temples  of  music 
and  drama. 


IV 

Standing  at  the  window  of  my  hotel  in  Stutt 
gart,  I  watched  a  crowd  before  the  Central  rail 
way  station.  Evidently  something  important 
was  about  to  take  place.  What !  Only  the 
day  previous  all  Stuttgart  had  strained  its  neck 
staring  at  a  big  Zeppelin  air-ship.  It  was  the 
week  of  the  Gordon  Bennett  balloon  race  and 
every  hotel,  every  lodging-house  was  full.  It 
was  also  the  Richard  Strauss  festival  week,  with 
the  formal  inauguration  of  the  two  magnificent 
opera-houses  in  the  Schlossgarten.  So  it  was 
not  difficult  to  guess  that  an  important  visitor 
was  due  at  the  station.  Hence  the  excitement, 
which  increased  when  the  King  of  Wiirtemberg 
dashed  up  in  an  open  carriage,  the  royal  livery 
and  all  the  rest  making  a  brave  picture  for  his 
loyal  subjects. 

I've  seen  several  kings  and  kaisers,  but  I've 
never  seen  one  that  looked  "every  inch  a  king." 
The  German  Kaiser  outwardly  is  a  well-groomed 
Englishman;  Franz  Josef  of  Austria  —  I've  not 
met  him  since  1903,  when  our  carriage  wheels 
locked  and  he,  a  lovable  old  man,  gallantly  sa- 
168 


RICHARD  STRAUSS  AT  STUTTGART 

luted  my  companion  —  he  is  everything  but 
kingly;  the  late  King  Edward  when  at  Marien- 
bad  was  very  much  the  portly  type  of  middle- 
aged  man  you  meet  in  Wall  Street  at  three 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon;  while  William  II  of 
Wiirtemberg  is  a  pleasant  gentleman,  with  "mer 
chant"  written  over  him.  It  is  true  he  is  an 
excellent  man  of  affairs,  harder  working  than 
any  of  his  countrymen.  He  is  also  more  demo 
cratic,  and  with  his  beloved  Queen  daily  prom 
enades  the  streets,  lifting  his  hat  half  the  time 
in  response  to  the  bowings  and  scrapings  of 
patriotic  Swabians. 

The  train  arrived.  The  crowd  grew  denser. 
Zealous  policemen  intercepted  passers-by  from 
coming  too  close  to  the  royal  equipage;  an  old 
peasant  woman  carrying  a  market-basket  was 
nearly  guillotined  by  the  harsh  reproaches  of 
the  officers.  She  stumbled,  but  was  shunted 
into  the  background  just  as  the  King  reap 
peared  in  company  with  Prince  August,  greeted 
with  wild  cheering.  The  crowd,  its  appetite  in 
creasing  by  what  it  had  fed  on,  remained.  What 
next?  Ah!  The  personal  servants  and  valets 
of  the  youthful  aristocrat  from  Berlin  emerged 
from  the  station  and  entered  a  break.  No  bag 
gage  as  yet.  "Drat  the  folk!"  I  exclaimed, 
"why  don't  they  clear  out  and  leave  the  way 
for  pedestrians."  But  it  was  not  to  be.  A 
murmur  arose  when  finally  a  baggage-wagon 
decked  by  the  royal  colours  appeared.  Trunks 
were  piled  on  it,  and  only  when  it  disappeared 
169 


RICHARD   STRAUSS  AT  STUTTGART 

did  the  crowd  melt.  I  thought  of  Gessler's  cap 
on  the  pole  and  William  Tell.  Curiosity  is  per 
haps  the  prime  root  of  patriotism. 

Finally,  as  too  much  Strauss  palls,  also  too 
much  Stuttgart.  I  first  visited  the  pretty  city 
in  1896  en  route  to  Bayreuth,  and  on  my  re 
turn  to  New  York  I  remember  chiding  Victor 
Herbert  for  leaving  the  place  where  he  had 
completed  his  musical  education.  He  merely 
smiled.  He  knew.  So  do  I.  A  Residenzstadt 
finally  ends  in  a  half -mad  desire  to  escape;  any 
where,  anywhere,  only  let  it  be  a  big  town  where 
the  inhabitants  don't  stare  at  you  as  if  you 
were  a  wild  animal.  Stuttgart  is  full  of  stare- 
cats  (as  is  Berlin  for  that  matter).  And  those 
hills  that  at  first  are  so  attractive  —  they  hem 
in  the  entire  city,  which  is  bowl-shaped,  in  a 
valley  —  become  monotonous.  They  stifle  you. 
To  live  up  there  on  the  heights  is  another  thing; 
then  the  sky  is  an  accomplice  in  your  optical 
pleasures,  but  below  —  especially  when  the  days 
are  rainy  and  the  nights  doleful,  as  they  are  in 
November  —  oh,  then  you  cry :  Let  me  see  once 
more  summer-sunlit  Holland  and  its  wide  plains 
punctuated  only  by  church  spires  and  wind 
mills! 

Otherwise  Stuttgart  is  an  easy-going  spot. 
It's  cheaper  than  Dresden  or  Munich  (though  it 
was  expensive  during  the  Strauss  week) ;  the  eat 
ing  at  the  restaurants  is  about  one-half  the  price 
of  first-rate  establishments  in  New  York  (and 
not  as  good  by  a  long  shot);  lodgings  are  also 
170 


RICHARD  STRAUSS  AT  STUTTGART 

cheap,  and  often  nasty  —  Germany  is  not  alto 
gether  hygienic,  notwithstanding  her  superiority 
over  America  in  matters  musical;  but  the  motor 
cars  are  simply  miraculous  to  the  New  Yorker 
accustomed  to  the  bullies,  bandits,  and  swindlers 
who  pretend  to  be  chauffeurs  in  our  metropolis. 
For  twenty-five  cents  you  can  ride  nearly  a 
half-hour  in  Stuttgart  in  cars  faultlessly  con 
ducted.  A  two  and  a  half  hours'  trip  round 
the  town  —  literally  —  in  the  hills,  through  the 
park  cost  seven  marks  (one  dollar  and  seventy- 
five  cents)  —  and  even  then  the  driver  was  dis 
tinctly  apologetic  when  he  showed  his  register. 

Stuttgart,  oddly  enough,  is  a  centre  for  all 
the  engraving,  etching,  and  mezzotint  sales.  I 
say,  oddly,  because  the  art  museum  contains  the 
worst  collection  of  alleged  "old  masters"  I  ever 
encountered  off  Fifth  Avenue.  Hardly  an  orig 
inal  in  the  whole  lot,  and  then  a  third-rate  speci 
men  at  that.  But  the  engraving  cabinets  and 
the  Rembrandt  original  drawings  are  justly  cele 
brated.  And  now  with  the  two  new  theatres,  or 
opera-houses,  Stuttgart  ought  soon  to  forge  to 
the  front  as  an  art  centre  in  Germany.  Thanks 
to  its  energetic  King  and  cultivated  Queen. 

The  question  with  which  I  began  this  little 
talk  —  is  Richard  Strauss'retrograding  in  his  art  ? 
• —  may  be  answered  by  a  curt  negative.  One 
broadside  doesn't  destroy  such  a  record  as  Rich 
ard's.  Like  that  sublime  bourgeois  Rubens,  like 
that  other  sublime  bourgeois  Victor  Hugo,  like 
Bernini,  to  whose  rococo  marbles  the  music  of 
171 


RICHARD   STRAUSS  AT  STUTTGART 

Richard  II  is  akin,  he  has  essayed  every  depart 
ment  of  his  art.  So  expressive  is  he  that  he 
could  set  a  mince-pie  to  music.  (Why  not,  after 
that  omelette  in  Ariadne?)  So  powerful  is  his 
imagination  that  he  can  paint  the  hatred  of  his 
epical  Elektra  or  the  half-mad  dreams  of  Don 
Quixote.  He  is  easily  the  foremost  of  living 
composers,  and  after  he  is  dead  the  whirligig  of 
fortune  which  has  so  favoured  him  may  pro 
nounce  him  dead  for  ever.  But  I  doubt  it. 


172 


IX 

MAX    LIEBERMANN    AND    SOME 
PHASES  OF  MODERN  GER 
MAN   ART 


THE  importance  of  Max  Liebermann  in  any 
critical  consideration  of  modern  German  art  is 
prime.  Meister  Max,  no  longer  as  active  as  he 
was,  for  he  was  born  in  1847,  *s  still  a  name 
to  conjure  with  not  only  in  Berlin,  his  birth 
place  and  present  home,  but  in  all  Germany, 
and,  for  that  matter,  the  wide  world.  He  is 
intensely  national.  He  is  a  Hebrew,  and  proud 
of  his  origin.  He  is  also  cosmopolitan.  In  a 
word,  he  is  versatile. 

Some  years  ago,  through  the  enthusiasm  and 
enterprise  of  the  late  Hugo  Reisinger  and  sev 
eral  other  art  lovers,  New  York  had  an  oppor 
tunity  of  enjoying  a  peep  at  German  paintings 
in  the  Metropolitan  Museum.  It  was  rather  a 
disappointing  exhibition,  principally  because  the 
men  shown  were  not  represented  at  their  best. 
Lenbach  was  not,  nor  Boecklin,  nor  a  dozen 
others,  though  Menzel  was.  That  is,  we  ad 
mired  one  of  Menzel's  least  characteristic  efforts 

173 


MAX  LIEBERMANN  AND   SOME 

but  his  most  brilliant  of  canvases,  the  stage 
of  the  Theatre  Gymnase,  Paris.  Never  before 
nor  since  that  pictorial  performance  did  the 
wonderful  Kobold  of  German  art  attain  such 
mellowness.  Just  as  he  had  been  under  the 
influence  of  Courbet  when  he  painted  his  big 
iron  forge  picture  —  which,  with  the  French 
theatre  subject,  hangs  in  the  National  Gallery, 
Berlin  —  so  he  felt  in  the  latter  the  impact  of 
the  new  Impressionistic  school  with  its  devo 
tion  to  pure  colour,  air,  and  rhythm.  Max 
Liebermann  was  best  seen  in  his  Flax  Spinners 
of  Laren,  an  early  work,  Dutch  in  spirit  and 
execution,  and  not  without  traces  of  the  influ 
ence  of  his  friend  Josef  Israels.  But  of  the 
real  Liebermann,  his  scope,  originality,  versa 
tility,  America,  I  think,  has  not  yet  had  an  ade 
quate  idea. 

Versatility  is  commonly  regarded  as  an  indi 
cation  of  superficiality.  How,  asks  Mr.  Worldly 
Wiseman,  can  that  fellow  Admirable  Crichton 
do  so  many  things  so  well  when  it  takes  all  my 
time  to  do  one  thing  badly  ?  Therefore  he  must 
be  regarded  suspiciously.  Now,  there  are  no 
short  cuts  in  the  domain  of  the  arts;  Gradus 
ad  Parnassum  is  always  steep.  But,  given  by 
nature  a  certain  kind  of  temperament  in  which 
curiosity  is  doubled  by  mental  energy,  and  you 
may  achieve  versatility.  Versatility  is  often 
mainly  an  affair  of  energy,  of  prolonged  indus 
try.  The  majority  of  artists  do  one  thing  well, 
and  for  the  remainder  of  their  career  repeat 

174 


PHASES  OF  MODERN  GERMAN  ART 

themselves.  When  Flaubert  wrote  Madame 
Bo  vary  his  admirers  demanded  a  replica  and 
were  disappointed  with  Salammbo,  with  Senti 
mental  Education,  above  all,  with  The  Tempta 
tion  of  St.  Anthony  and  Bouvard  and  Pecuchet. 
Being  a  creative  genius,  Flaubert  taught  him 
self  to  be  versatile.  Only  through  self -discipline, 
did  he  achieve  his  scheme,  beside  which  the 
writing  of  the  Human  Comedy  cannot  be  com 
pared.  There  is  more  thought-stuff  packed  in 
his  five  masterpieces,  apart  from  the  supreme 
art,  than  in  whole  libraries:  quality  triumphing 
over  quantity. 

Greatly  endowed  by  nature,  by  reason  of  his 
racial  origin,  and  because  of  his  liberal  educa 
tion,  Liebermann  was  bound  to  become  a  versa 
tile  artist.  That  doesn't  mean  he  is  a  perfec 
tionist  in  many  things,  that  he  etches  as  well 
as  he  paints,  that  he  composes  as  well  as  he 
draws.  As  a  matter  of  fact  he  is  not  as  ac 
complished  a  master  of  the  medium  as  is  Anders 
Zorn;  many  a  smaller  man,  artistically  speak 
ing,  handles  the  needle  with  more  deftness  than 
Liebermann.  But  as  a  general  impression  counts 
as  much  as  technique,  your  little  etcher  is  soon 
forgotten  when  you  are  confronted  with  such 
plates  as  the  self-portraits,  the  various  beer-gar 
dens,  the  houses  on  the  dunes  (with  a  hint  of  the 
Rembrandt  magic),  or  the  bathing  boys.  His 
skill  in  black  and  white  is  best  seen  when  he 
holds  a  pencil,  charcoal,  or  pen  in  his  hand. 
The  lightness,  swiftness,  elasticity  of  his  line, 

175 


MAX  LIEBERMANN  AND    SOME 

the  precise  effect  attained  and  the  clarity  of  the 
design  prove  the  master  at  his  best  and  un 
hampered  by  the  slower  technical  processes  of 
etching  or  lithography. 

I  studied  Liebermann's  work  from  Amster 
dam  to  Vienna,  and  out  of  the  variety  of  styles 
set  forth  I  endeavoured  to  disentangle  several 
leading  characteristics.  The  son  of  a  well- 
known  Berlin  family,  his  father  a  comfortably 
situated  manufacturer,  the  young  Max  was 
brought  up  in  an  atmosphere  of  culture  and 
family  affection.  His  love  for  art  was  so  pro 
nounced  that  his  father,  like  the  father  of  Men 
delssohn,  let  him  follow  his  bent,  and  at  fourteen 
he  was  placed  under  the  tutelage  of  Steffeck, 
an  old-timer,  whose  pictures  nowadays  seem 
a  relic  from  some  nightmare  of  art.  Steffeck 
had  studied  under  Schadow,  another  of  the 
prehistoric  Dinosaurs  of  Germany,  and  boasted 
of  it.  He  once  told  Liebermann  that  Adolf 
Menzel  only  made  caricatures,  not  portraits. 
You  rub  your  eyes  and  wonder.  Liebermann 
has  said  that  this  rigid  training  did  him  good. 
But  he  soon  forgot  it  in  actual  practice.  Some 
good  angel  must  have  protected  him,  for  he 
came  under  the  influence  of  Munkaczy  and, 
luckily  for  him,  escaped  the  evil  paint  of  that 
overrated  mediocrity.  But  perhaps  the  Hun 
garian  helped  him  to  build  a  bridge  between 
the  antique  formula  of  Steffeck  and  the  mod 
ern  French  —  that  is,  the  Impressionists.  Max 
had  to  burn  many  bridges  behind  him  before  he 
176 


PHASES  OF  MODERN  GERMAN  ART 

formed  a  style  of  his  own.  Individuality  is  not 
always  born,  it  is  sometimes  made,  despite  what 
the  copy-books  assure  us  to  the  contrary.  The 
wit  and  irony  of  the  man  and  painter  come  both 
from  Berlin  and  from  his  Jewish  ancestry.  He 
looks  like  a  benevolent  Mephistopheles,  and  is 
kindness  personified  to  young  artists. 

Subjecting  himself  to  the  influence  of  Cour- 
bet,  Millet,  Rousseau,  Corot,  Troyon,  he  went 
to  Holland,  and  there  fell  captive  to  the  genius 
of  Rembrandt.  The  mystic  in  Liebermann  is 
less  pronounced  than  one  might  expect.  His 
clear  picture  of  the  visible  world  holds  few  se 
cret,  haunted  spots.  I  do  not  altogether  believe 
in  his  biblical  subjects,  in  the  Samson  and  Deli 
lah,  in  the  youthful  Christ  and  the  Doctors  of 
the  Law  —  the  latter  is  of  more  interest  than  the 
former  —  they  strike  one  as  academic  exercises. 
Nevertheless,  the  lion's  paw  of  Rembrandt  left 
its  impress  upon  his  art.  The  profounder  note 
which  the  French  painters  sometimes  miss  is 
not  missing  in  Liebermann.  He  has  avoided 
both  the  pomp  and  rhetoric  of  the  academic 
school  and  the  sentimentality  of  the  latter-day 
Germans.  Liebermann  is  never  sentimental, 
though  pity  for  the  suffering  of  life  is  easily 
detected  in  his  canvases,  particularly  in  his  Old 
Men's  Home,  The  Orphans,  The  Widower,  and 
a  dozen  masterpieces  of  the  sort. 

In  Frans  Hals  Liebermann  found  a  congenial 
spirit  and  made  many  copies  of  his  pictures  to 
train  his  hand  and  eye.  His  portraits  reveal 
177 


MAX  LIEBERMANN    AND    SOME 

the  broad  brush  work  of  Hals.  They  are  also 
psychological  documents.  Associated  with  Josef 
Israels,  he  was  in  sympathy  with  him,  but  never 
as  sentimental  as  the  Dutchman.  Both  rever 
enced  Rembrandt  and  interpreted  him,  each 
after  his  own  temperament.  When  Liebermann 
first  knew  Manet,  Monet,  Pissarro,  Renoir,  and 
Degas  (particularly  Degas)  he  had  experimented 
in  every  key.  Master  of  his  materials,  master 
of  himself,  a  cultured  man  of  the  world  and  a 
sincere  artist,  the  French  group  showed  him  the 
way  to  liberty,  to  a  deliverance  from  the  ruddy 
tones  of  Munich,  from  the  dulness  of  Diissel- 
dorf,  from  the  bitter  angularities  of  German 
draughtsmanship  and  its  naivete  which  is  sup 
posed  to  stand  for  innocence  of  spirit  —  really 
the  reverse,  a  complete  poverty  of  spirit  —  and 
with  it  all  the  romantic  mythology  of  German 
art,  the  bloated  fighting  fauns,  leering  satyrs, 
frogmen,  fishwomen,  monkeys,  and  fairies,  imps, 
dryads,  and  nymphs.  Liebermann  discovered 
the  glories  of  light,  of  spacing,  of  pure  colour, 
and  comprehended  the  various  combinations  by 
which  tonalities  could  be  dissociated  and  syn- 
thesised  anew.  He  went  back  to  Germany  a 
painter  of  the  first  rank  and  an  ardent  colour- 
ist,  and  he  must  have  felt  lonely  there  —  there 
were  no  others  like  him.  Menzel  was  a  master 
draughtsman,  Leibl  an  admirable  delineator  of 
character,  and  to  name  these  three  is  to  name 
all.  Henceforward,  Liebermann's  life  task  was 
to  correlate  his  cosmopolitan  art  with  German 
178 


PHASES  OF  MODERN   GERMAN  ART 

spirit,  and  he  has  nobly  succeeded.  To-day  he 
is  still  the  commanding  figure  in  German  art. 
No  one  can  compete  with  him  in  maestria,  in 
range,  or  as  a  colourist.  And  at  last  I  have 
reached  the  goal  of  my  discourse. 


II 


A  visit  to  the  National  Gallery  of  Berlin 
makes  me  gnash  my  teeth.  The  sight  of  so 
much  misspent  labour,  of  the  acres  of  can 
vases  deluged  with  dirty,  bad  paint,  raises  my 
bile.  We  know  that  all  things  are  relative,  and 
because  Germany  has  produced  few  painters 
worthy  of  the  name  that  after  all  it  doesn't 
much  matter  —  there  is  Italy  and  Holland  to  fall 
back  on;  not  to  mention  the  Spain  of  El  Greco, 
Velasquez,  Goya,  and  the  great  Frenchmen.  But 
there  is  something  singularly  exasperating  in 
German  painting,  whether  old  or  new,  that  sets 
us  to  wondering  whether  such  museums  as  the 
National  Gallery,  Berlin;  the  new  Pinakothek, 
Munich,  and  other  repositories  of  ugly  colour 
and  absurd  mythologies  do  not  cause  a  deterio 
ration  in  public  taste.  It  is  almost  pathetic 
to  see  not  only  the  general  visitor  but  also  stu 
dents  gazing  admiringly  at  the  monstrous  art  of 
Kaulbach,  Schadow,  Cornelius  (the  Nazarene 
school),  or  at  the  puerilities  of  the  Swiss,  Arnold 
Boecklin  and  his  follower,  Franz  von  Stuck,  of 
Munich,  who  has  simply  brutalised  the  eternal 
179 


MAX  LIEBERMANN  AND    SOME 

Boecklin  themes.  It  is  all  very  well  to  say  that 
these  galleries,  like  the  modern  collection  up 
stairs  in  the  Dresden  gallery  (with  its  wonder 
ful  Rembrandts  and  Vermeers  down-stairs)  serve 
to  preserve  the  historical  art  chain.  But  bad 
art  should  have  no  significance,  history  or  no 
history  —  let  such  history  appeal  to  the  pro 
fessors  of  aesthetics  and  other  twaddlers.  Fur 
thermore,  the  evil  example  of  Boecklin  and  the 
rest,  shows  in  German  contemporary  painting. 
I  don't  mean  the  Cubists  and  other  freaks,  but 
in  current  art,  the  art  that  sells,  that  receives 
respectful  critical  treatment.  We  are  continu 
ally  forced  to  look  at  the  menagerie,  mermaids, 
and  frogs,  and  fauns,  painted  in  imitation  of  the 
hard,  violent  tones  of  Boecklin,  himself  a  scene- 
painter,  but  not  a  great  painter. 

The  critics  in  Germany  don't  bother  them 
selves  over  paint  quality,  beautiful  surfaces,  or 
handling,  but  with  books  about  the  philosophy 
of  the  painter,  his  "Weltanschauung,"  his  ethics; 
you  all  the  while  wondering  why  he  uses  such 
muddy  paints,  why  he  is  blind  to  the  loveliness 
of  atmosphere,  pure  colours,  and  sheer  pictorial 
quality.  Style  and  quality  are,  I  believe,  sus 
pected  in  Germany  as  evidences  of  superficial 
ity,  of  a  desire  to  add  ornament  where  plain 
speech  should  suffice.  Like  German  prose  and 
German  singing  —  oh,  how  acrid  is  the  Teu 
tonic  tone-production,  a  lemon  in  the  larynx! 
—  German  painting  limps  heavily.  Nietzsche  is 
right;  in  certain  matters  the  Germans  are  the 
180 


PHASES  OF  MODERN  GERMAN  ART 

Chinese  of  Europe;  they  refuse  to  see  the  light 
of  modern  discoveries  in  art. 

Here  is  a  violent  instance:  On  the  top  floor 
of  the  National  Gallery,  Berlin,  there  is  a  room 
with  fourteen  masterpieces  on  its  walls.  Noth 
ing  in  the  galleries  below  —  not  even  Zorn's 
Maja  —  nothing  in  all  Berlin,  excepting  the  old 
masters  in  the  Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum,  can  be 
mentioned  in  the  same  breath  with  these  beau 
tiful  compositions,  condemned  to  perpetual  twi 
light.  They  were  secured  by  the  late  and  la 
mented  Von  Tschudi,  who  left  the  National 
Gallery  after  their  purchase  and  retired  to  Mu 
nich,  where  he  bought  a  great  example  of  El 
Greco  for  the  old  Pinakothek,  the  Laocoon,  a 
service,  I  fancy,  not  quite  appreciated  by  the 
burghers  of  Munich.  The  masters  who  have 
thus  fallen  under  the  ban  of  official  displeasure 
are  Manet,  Monet,  Pissarro,  Renoir,  Sisley, 
and  Cezanne  —  the  latter  represented  by  two 
of  the  most  veracious  fruit-pieces  I  ever  saw. 
The  Manet  is  the  famous  Hothouse,  and  in  the 
semi-darkness  (not  a  ray  of  artificial  light  is 
permitted)  I  noted  that  the  canvas  had  mel 
lowed  with  the  years.  The  Monets  are  of  rare 
quality.  Altogether  a  magnificent  object-lesson 
for  young  Germany,  in  which  tender  colour,  an 
exquisite  vision  (poetic  without  being  sloppy- 
sentimental)  of  the  animate  and  inanimate 
world.  What  a  lesson  for  those  rough  daubers 
who  growl  at  the  dandyism  of  the  Frenchmen, 
whose  landscapes  look  like  diagrams,  surveyors' 
181 


MAX  LIEBERMANN  AND    SOME 

maps,  or  what-not;  painters  who,  if  they  were 
told  that  they  are  not  knee-high  to  a  grass 
hopper  when  their  pictures  are  set  side  by  side 
with  American  landscapists,  would  roar  as  if  at 
a  good  joke;  and  a  lesson  that  will  never  be 
learned  by  the  present  generation,  which  believes 
that  Max  Klinger  is  a  great  etcher,  a  great 
sculptor  (only  think  of  that  terrifying  Bee 
thoven  statue  in  Leipsic),  that  Boecklin  is  a 
great  poet  as  well  as  a  marvellous  painter,  that 
—  oh,  what's  the  use !  The  nation  that  pro 
duced  such  world  masters  as  Albrecht  Diirer, 
Hans  Holbein,  Lucas  Cranach,  and  the  German 
Primitives  has  seemingly  lost  its  lien  in  sound 
art. 

Remember,  I  am  not  arguing  with  you,  as 
Jemmy  Whistler  puts  it,  I'm  just  telling  you; 
these  things  are  not  a  matter  of  taste,  but  a 
matter  of  fact,  of  rotten  bad  paint.  What  Royal 
Cortissoz  wrote  of  the  German  Exhibition  and 
of  the  Scandinavians  when  in  New  York  fits  into 
this  space  with  appositeness:  "  ...  an  insen- 
sitiveness  to  the  genius  of  their  medium.  They 
do  not  love  paint  and  caress  it  with  a  sensuous 
instinct  for  its  exquisite  potentialities.  They 
know  nothing  of  the  beauty  of  surface.  Nor, 
by  the  same  token,  have  they  awakened  to  the 
lesson  which  Manet  so  admirably  enforced  of 
the  magic  that  lies  in  pure  colour  for  those  who 
really  know  how  to  use  it."  I  can  hear  our 
German  friend  discoursing  on  the  subject  of 
surface  beauty !  For  him  the  underlying  philo- 
182 


PHASES  OF  MODERN  GERMAN  ART 

sophic  "idea,"  whatever  that  has  to  do  with 
paint,  is  his  shibboleth,  and  behold  the  result. 
Moreover,  the  German  has  not  naturally  a  colour 
sense.  It  is  only  such  a  man  as  Reinhardt,  with 
the  Oriental  feeling  for  sumptuous  hues,  that 
has  succeeded  in  emancipating  the  German 
theatre  from  its  garish  taste.  Some  day  the 
Richard  Wagner  music-drama  will  be  renovated 
on  the  scenic  side  —  Roller  in  Vienna  has  made  a 
decided  step  in  the  right  direction  —  and  the  old 
Munich  travesties,  which  Wagner  thought  he 
wanted,  will  be  relegated  to  the  limbo  of  meretri 
cious  art. 

Ill 

Fancying,  perhaps,  that  I  had  not  been  quite 
fair  to  modern  German  painters  —  later  I  may 
consider  the  ghastly  sculpture  which,  like  that 
cemetery  of  stone  dolls  and  idols,  the  Sieges- 
allee  in  the  Berlin  Tiergarten,  has  paralysed 
plastic  art  in  that  country  —  I  determined  early 
in  the  autumn  of  1912  to  visit  again  the  prin 
cipal  cities,  going  as  far  down  as  Vienna  and 
Budapest.  I  do  not  mind  confessing  that  the 
thought  of  the  glorious  Jan  Vermeer  in  the  Na 
tional  Museum  in  the  Magyar  capital  greatly 
tempted  me.  And  to  get  an  abiding  pictorial 
flavour  in  my  mind  I  began  visiting  The  Hague, 
Haarlem,  and  "Amsterdam.  Any  one  who  can 
admire  modern  German  art  after  a  course  of 
Rembrandt,  Hals,  Vermeer,  Josef  Israels,  and 

183 


MAX  LIEBERMANN  AND    SOME 

the  brothers  Maris  (all  three  melting  colour- 
ists),  must  have  the  powerful  if  somewhat  un 
critical  stomach  of  an  ostrich. 

Leaving  Holland,  I  found  myself  in  London, 
and  there,  to  add  further  to  my  distraction,  I 
spent  weeks  at  the  National  Gallery  and  the 
Wallace  Collection.  So  I  was  ripe  for  revolt 
when  I  began  at  Stuttgart.  While  still  in  the 
rich  tonal  meshes  of  the  Richard  Strauss  music, 
I  wandered  one  grey  afternoon  into  an  exhibi 
tion  of  the  Stuttgarter  Kiinstlerbund.  There 
were  plenty  of  new  names,  but,  alas!  no  new 
talent,  only  a  sea  of  muddy  paint,  without  nu 
ance,  clumsy  drawing,  harsh  flesh-tints,  and 
landscapes  of  chemical  greens.  Why  mention 
names?  Not  even  mediocrity  was  attained, 
though  the  next  day  I  read  in  the  papers  that 
Professor  This  and  Professor  That  were  exhibit 
ing  masterpieces  full  of  profound  ideas.  Ah ! 
these  paint  professors,  these  philosophy-soaked 
critics,  and  that  profound  idea !  Not,  however, 
a  word  about  the  pictorial  image. 

In  Munich,  beside  the  standard  galleries,  I 
visited  the  Secession  Gallery,  and  there  I  saw 
pictures  by  Becker-Gundhal,  Louis  Corinth, 
Paul  Crodel,  Josef  Damberger,  Julius  Diez, 
Eichfeld,  Von  Habermann  (a  portraitist  of  dis 
tinction)  ,  Herterich  (with  much  decorative  abil 
ity),  Von  Heyden  (deceased,  and  a  capital  de 
lineator  of  chickens) ,  Von  Keller,  Landenberger, 
Arthur  Langhammer  (deceased),  Pietzsch,  Bruno 
Piglhein  (also  deceased,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  for 
184 


PHASES  OF  MODERN  GERMAN  ART 

he  had  genuine  ability),  Leo  Samberger  (an  in 
teresting  portraitist,  monotonous  in  his  colour- 
gamut),  Schramm-Zitau,  the  inevitable  Von 
Stuck  (whose  productions  look  like  melodra 
matic  posters),  the  late  Fritz  von  Uhde,  W. 
Volz,  and  others,  mostly  dead,  and  but  recently. 
The  portrait  of  Conrad  Ansorge,  a  former  Liszt 
pupil,  by  Louis  Corinth,  was  not  without  char 
acter,  the  tempo  slow,  as  is  the  tempo  of  An 
sorge  himself.  Corinth,  like  Von  Uhde,  Leo 
pold  von  Kalckreuth,  0.  H.  Engel,  Skarbina, 
Bantzer,  Slevogt,  Waldemar  Rosier,  is  a  follower 
of  Max  Liebermann,  whose  influence  is  easily 
discernible  in  the  work  of  these  younger  men. 
To  be  sure,  there  are  no  landscapists  in  Ger 
many,  such  as  Davies,  Ernest  Lawson,  Alden 
Weir,  Childe  Hassam,  Metcalf  —  I  mention  a  few 
at  random  —  but  the  younger  chaps  are  getting 
away  from  the  sentimental  panoramas  of  Hans 
Thoma  and  other  "idealists"  who  ought  to  be 
writing  verse  or  music,  not  painting,  as  too 
many  ideas,  like  too  many  cooks,  spoil  the 
pictorial  broth. 

Grant  the  Germans  fertility  of  fancy,  inven 
tion,  science  in  building  up  a  figure,  force,  hu 
mour,  sentiment,  philosophy,  and  artistic  abil 
ity  generally,  yet  they  have  a  deficiency  in  the 
colour  sense  and  an  absence  of  a  marked  per 
sonal  style.  An  exhibition  of  new  art  on  the 
Odeonplatz,  Munich,  did  not  give  me  much 
hope.  There  were  some  pictures  so  bad  as  to 
be  humorous;  a  dancer  by  the  Holland-Pari- 


MAX  LIEBERMANN  AND    SOME 

sian,  Kees  van  Dongen,  had  the  merit  at  least 
of  sincerity.  Erbsloh  has  joined  the  extrem 
ists,  Kirchner,  Guimi,  Kanoldt,  Kandinsky, 
Utrello  —  a  good  street  effect;  Werefkin  and 
several  Frenchmen  were  in  evidence.  The  mod 
elling  was  both  grotesque  and  indecent.  The 
human  figure  as  an  arabesque  is  well  within  the 
comprehension  of  the  average  observer,  but  ob 
scenity  is  not  art  —  great  art  is  never  obscene. 
The  blacks  and  whites  that  I  saw  in  Munich 
at  this  particular  show  were  not  clever,  only 
bestial.  I  only  wish  that  German  art  of  the 
last  decade  had  not  gone  over,  bag  and  baggage, 
to  the  side  of  vulgar  license.  Certainly  Mat 
thew  Arnold  could  say  of  it,  as  he  once  said  of 
Paris,  that  the  great  goddess  Lubricity  reigned 
in  state. 

In  the  Moderne  Galerie  —  I  am  still  in  Mu 
nich  —  I  was  reassured;  I  saw  Israels,  Gauguin, 
Van  Gogh  —  what  masters !  —  Triibner,  Hod- 
ler,  Ztigel,  Von  Uhde,  Max  Slevogt  —  a  fine  view 
of  Frankfort  —  and  some  children  at  the  sea 
shore  by  my  favourite,  Max  Liebermann.  Then 
there  were  Langhammer  and  Reumaini,  the 
clever  Max  Mayrshofer,  Bechler  of  the  snow 
scenes,  Obwald,  Tooby,  Leibl,  Marees,  and  a 
very  strongly  conceived  and  soundly  modelled 
nude  by  the  Munich  artist,  Ernest  Liebermann, 
one  of  the  most  gifted  of  the  younger  men  and 
no  relation  of  Meister  Max  of  the  same  name. 
Local  art  in  Vienna  did  not  give  me  a  thrill. 
I  attended  a  retrospective  exhibition  of  two 
186 


PHASES  OF  MODERN  GERMAN  ART 

half-forgotten  mediocrities,  Carl  Rahl  and  Josef 
Hasslwander,  and  also  the  autumn  exhibition 
in  the  Kiinstlerhaus.  There,  amid  miles  of 
glittering,  shiny,  hot  paint,  I  found  the  best 
manipulator  of  paint  to  be  a  man  bearing  the 
slightly  American  name  of  John  Quincy  Adams, 
whose  residence  is  given  in  the  catalogue  as 
Vienna.  He  has  studied  John  Sargent  to  ad 
vantage  and  knows  how  to  handle  his  medium, 
knows  values,  an  unknown  art  in  Germany  and 
Austria  except  to  a  few  painters.  The  glory 
of  Vienna  art  is  in  her  museums  and  in  the 
private  collections  of  Prince  Liechtenstein  and 
Count  Czernin. 

Despite  his  patchwork  of  colour,  Ignacio  Zu- 
loaga's  exhibition  at  Dresden  (on  the  Prager- 
strasse)  gave  me  the  modern  thrill  I  missed 
both  at  Vienna  and  Prague  (though  in  the  Bo 
hemian  city  I  saw  some  remarkable  engravings 
by  the  native  engraver  Wencelaus  Hollar). 
Several  of  the  Zuloagas  have  been  seen  in  New 
York  when  Archer  M.  Huntington  invited  the 
Spanish  artist  to  exhibit  at  the  Hispanic  Mu 
seum.  Not,  however,  his  Lassitude,  two  half- 
nudes,  nor  his  powerful  but  unpleasant  Bleed 
ing  Christ.  What  a  giant  Zuloaga  seems  when 
matched  against  the  insipidity  and  coarseness 
of  modern  German  art.  The  recent  art  of  Ar 
thur  Kampf,  who  is  a  painter  of  more  force 
than  distinction,  a  one-man  show  in  Unter  den 
Linden,  Berlin,  did  not  impress  me;  nor  did  the 
third  jury-free  art  show  in  Rudolph  Lepkes's 
187 


MAX  LIEBERMANN  AND    SOME 

new  galleries  in  the  Potsdamerstrasse,  except 
that  it  was  much  less  objectionable  than  the 
one  in  1911,  then  held  across  the  street. 

Therefore  I  don't  think  I  exaggerate  the 
claims  of  Max  Liebermann,  who  is,  for  me,  the 
most  important  of  living  German  artists,  and 
one  of  the  few  great  painters  of  to-day  in  any 
land.  His  boys  bathing,  his  peaceful  Holland 
interiors,  his  sympathetic  presentment  of  poor 
folk,  superannuated  survivals  awaiting  death, 
his  spirited  horses  and  horsemen,  polo  pony 
players,  race-course,  his  vivid  transcription  of 
Berlin  out-of-door  life,  the  concert  gardens,  the 
Zoo,  the  crowded  streets,  his  children,  his  por 
traits,  his  sonorous,  sparkling  colour,  his  etch 
ings  and  drawings  —  the  list  is  large;  all  these 
various  aspects  of  the  world  he  has  recorded 
with  a  fresh,  unfailing  touch.  His  horses  are 
not  as  rhythmic  as  those  of  Degas,  his  land 
scapes  are  not  as  sun-flooded  as  those  of  Monet, 
nor  are  his  Holland  bits  so  charged  with  homely 
sentiment  as  those  of  Josef  Israels.  But  Lieber 
mann  is  Liebermann,  with  a  supple,  flowing, 
pregnant  line,  his  condensed  style  a  versatile 
conception,  a  cynical,  at  times,  outlook  upon  the 
life  about  him;  enfin  —  a  colourist. 

My  admiration  for  Liebermann's  draughts 
manship  shown  in  the  Berlin  Secession  Gallery 
in  the  Kurfurstdam  was  reproved  by  a  German 
friend,  who  remarked  that  Anselm  Feuerbach 
was  a  "sounder"  draughtsman.  No  doubt,  but 
I  prefer  Liebermann's  more  nervous  graphic 
188 


PHASES  OF  MODERN  GERMAN  ART 

line,  also  more  eloquent,  for  Feuerbach,  who  is 
still  called  a  master  in  Munich  —  he  made  grey 
cartoons  —  is  as  frigid  and  academic  as  a  painted 
nude  in  a  blizzard. 


189 


X 

A  MUSICAL  PRIMITIVE:   MO- 
DESTE  MOUSSORGSKY 

ONE  need  not  be  a  Slavophile  to  admire  Rus 
sian  patriotism.  The  love  of  the  Russian  for 
his  country  is  a  passion.  And  from  lips  parched 
by  the  desire  of  liberty  —  though  persecuted, 
exiled,  imprisoned  —  this  passion  is  still  voiced 
with  unabated  intensity.  What  eloquent  apos 
trophes  have  been  addressed  Russia  by  her  great 
writers!  How  Turgenieff  praised  her  noble 
tongue !  The  youngest  among  the  European 
nations,  herself  a  nation  with  genius,  must  pos 
sess  a  mighty  power  thus  to  arouse  the  souls 
of  her  children.  Russia  right  or  wrong!  seems 
to  be  the  slogan,  even  of  those  whom  injustice 
and  cruelty  have  driven  to  desperation.  It  is 
the  land  of  neuroses,  and  the  form  that  patriot 
ism  assumes  there  may  be  one  other  specimen. 
Yet  the  Russian  is  a  cosmopolitan  man;  he  is 
more  French  than  the  Parisian,  and  a  willing 
dweller  in  the  depths  of  German  thought.  The 
most  artistic  of  Russia's  novelists,  Turgenieff, 
was  cosmopolitan;  and  it  was  a  frequent  re 
proach  made  during  his  lifetime  that  the  music 
of  Tschaikovsky  was  too  European,  not  suffi- 
190 


MODESTE  MOUSSORGSKY 

ciently  national.  Naturally,  Anton  Rubinstein 
suffered  the  same  criticism;  too  German  for 
the  Russians,  too  Russian  for  the  Germans.  It 
was  altogether  different  in  the  case  of  Modeste 
Moussorgsky. 

To  enter  into  sympathy  with  Russian  music 
we  must  remember  one  thing:  that  the  na 
tional  spirit  pervades  its  masterpieces.  Even 
the  so-called  "cosmopolitanism"  of  Peter  Hitch 
Tschaikovsky  is  superficial.  To  be  sure,  he 
leaned  on  Liszt  and  the  French,  but  boom 
ing  melancholy  and  orgiastic  frenzy  may  be 
found  in  some  of  his  symphonies.  According 
to  the  judgment  of  the  Rubinsteins  he  was  too 
much  the  Kalmuck;  Nicolas  Rubinstein  severely 
criticised  him  for  this  trait.  But  of  all  the  little 
group  that  gathered  about  Mila  Balakirev  fifty 
years  ago  there  was  no  one  so  Russian  as  a 
certain  young  officer  named  Modeste  Petro- 
vitch  Moussorgsky  (born  1839,  died  1881). 
Not  Rimsky-Korsakof,  Borodine,  Cesar  Cui 
were  so  deeply  saturated  with  love  of  the  Rus 
sian  soil  and  folk-lore  as  this  pleasant  young 
man.  He  played  the  piano  skilfully,  but  as 
amateur,  not  virtuoso.  He  came  of  good  fam 
ily,  "little  nobles,"  and  received  an  excellent 
but  conventional  education.  A  bit  of  a  dandy, 
he  was  the  last  person  from  whom  to  expect  a 
revolution,  but  in  Russia  anything  may  hap 
pen.  Moussorgsky  was  like  other  well-nur 
tured  youths  who  went  to  Siberia  for  a  mere 
gesture  of  dissent.  With  Emerson  he  might 
191 


A  MUSICAL  PRIMITIVE: 

have  agreed  that  "whoso  would  be  a  man 
must  be  a  non-conformist."  With  him  rebellion 
against  law  and  order  revealed  itself  in  an  ab 
horrence  of  text-books,  harmony,  and  scholastic 
training.  He  wished  to  achieve  originality 
without  the  monotonous  climb  to  the  peak  of 
Parnassus,  and  this  was  his  misfortune.  Two 
anarchs  of  music,  Richard  Strauss  and  Arnold 
Schoenberg,  reached  their  goals  after  march 
ing  successfully  through  the  established  forms: 
and  the  prose  versicles  of  Walt  Whitman  were 
achieved  only  after  he  had  practised  the  ordi 
nary  rules  of  prosody.  Not  so  with  Moussorg- 
sky,  and  while  few  youthful  composers  have 
been  so  carefully  counselled,  he  either  could  not, 
or  would  not,  take  the  trouble  of  mastering  the 
rudiments  of  his  art. 

The  result  almost  outweighs  the  evil  —  his 
opera,  Boris  Godounow.  The  rest  of  his  music, 
with  a  few  notable  exceptions,  is  not  worth  the 
trouble  of  resuscitating.  I  say  this  although  I 
disagree  with  the  enthusiastic  Pierre  d'Alheim  — 
whose  book  first  made  me  acquainted  with  the 
Russian's  art  —  and  disagree,  too,  with  Colvo- 
coressi,  whose  study  is  likely  to  remain  the  defini 
tive  one.  I've  played  the  piano  music  and  found 
it  banal  in  form  and  idea,  far  less  individual  than 
the  piano  pieces  of  Cui,  Liadow,  Stcherbatchef, 
Arensky,  or  Rachmaninof.  The  keyboard  did 
not  make  special  appeal  to  Moussorgsky.  With 
his  songs  it  is  another  matter.  His  lyrics  are 
charming  and  characteristic.  Liszt  warmly 
192 


MODESTE  MOUSSORGSKY 

praised  La  Chambre  des  Enfants,  one  of  his  most 
popular  compositions.  Moussorgsky  would  not 
study  the  elements  of  orchestration,  and  one  of 
the  penalties  he  paid  was  that  his  friend,  Rimsky- 
Korsakof  "edited"  Boris  Godounow  (in  1896 
a  new  edition  appeared  with  changes,  purely 
practical,  as  Colvocoressi  notes,  but  the  orches 
tration,  clumsy  as  it  is,  largely  remains  the  work 
of  the  composer)  and  La  Khovanchtchina  was 
scored  by  Rimsky-Korsakof,  and  no  doubt 
"edited,"  that  is,  revised,  what  picture  experts 
call  "restored."  So  the  musical  baggage  which 
is  carried  by  Moussorgsky  down  the  corridor  of 
time  is  not  large.  But  it  is  significant. 

He  was  much  influenced  by  Dargomyjski, 
particularly  in  the  matter  of  realism.  "I  in 
sist  that  the  tone  will  directly  translate  the 
word,"  was  an  axiom  of  this  musician.  His 
friend  and  follower  often  carries  this  precept  to 
the  point  of  caricature.  There  are  numerous 
songs  which  end  in  mere  mimicry,  parody,  a 
pantomime  of  tone.  The  realism  so  much  em 
phasised  by  the  critic  Stassow  and  others  is 
really  an  enormous  sincerity,  and  the  reduction 
to  an  almost  bare  simplicity  of  the  musical  idea. 
His  vigorous  rhythmic  sense  enabled  Moussorg 
sky  to  express  bizarre  motions  and  unusual  sit 
uations  that  are  at  first  blush  extramusical. 
Many  of  his  "reforms"  are  not  reforms  at  all, 
rather  the  outcome  of  his  passion  for  simplifi 
cation.  The  framework  of  his  opera  —  Boris 
Godounow  —  is  rather  commonplace,  a  plethora 

193 


A  MUSICAL  PRIMITIVE: 

of  choral  numbers  the  most  marked  feature.  In 
the  original  draught  there  was  an  absence  of  the 
feminine  element,  but  after  much  pressure  the 
composer  was  persuaded  to  weave  several  scenes 
into  the  general  texture,  and  let  it  be  said  that 
these  are  the  weakest  in  the  work.  The  primal 
power  of  the  composition  carries  us  away,  not 
its  form,  which,  to  tell  the  truth,  is  rather  old- 
fashioned. 

His  stubbornness  is  both  a  failure  and  a  vir 
tue.  His  sincerity  covers  a  multitude  of  inep 
titudes,  but  it  is  a  splendid  sincerity.  His  pref 
erence  for  unrelated  tones  in  his  melodic  scheme 
led  to  the  dissociated  harmonies  of  his  operatic 
score,  and  this  same  Boris  Godounow  has  much 
influenced  French  music,  —  as  I  have  pointed 
out  earlier  in  this  volume  —  a  source  at  which 
Claude  Debussy  drank  —  not  to  mention  Dukas, 
Ravel,  and  others  —  whose  more  sophisticated 
scores  prove  this.  Of  Moussorgsky,  Debussy 
has  remarked  that  he  reminded  him  of  a  curious 
savage  who  at  every  step  traced  by  his  emo 
tions  discovers  music.  And  Boris  Godounow  is 
virgin  soil.  That  is  why  I  have  called  its  creator 
a  Primitive.  He  has  achieved  the  na'ive  attitude 
toward  music  which  in  the  plastic  arts  is  the  very 
essence  of  the  Flemish  Primitives.  Nature  made 
him  deaf  to  other  men's  music.  In  his  savage 
craving  for  absolute  originality  —  the  most  im 
possible  of  all  "absolutes"  —  he  sought  to  ab 
stract  from  the  art  its  chief  components.  He 
would  have  it  in  its  naked  innocence :  rhythmic, 
194 


MODESTE  MOUSSORGSKY 

undefiled  by  customary  treatment,  and  never 
swerving  from  the  "truth"  of  the  poem.  His 
devotion  to  the  verbal  text  and  dramatic  action 
out-Wagners  Wagner.  Moussorgsky  did  not 
approve  of  Wagner's  gigantic  orchestral  appar 
atus;  he  wished  to  avoid  all  that  would  dis 
tract  the  spectator  from  the  stage  —  for  him 
Wagner  was  too  much  "  symphonist,"  not  enough 
dramatist.  Action,  above  all,  no  thematic  de 
velopment  in  the  academic  sense,  were  the  Rus 
sian's  watchwords.  Paul  Cezanne  is  a  Primi 
tive  among  modern  painters,  inasmuch  as  he 
discards  the  flamboyant  rhetoric  and  familiar 
points  d'appui  of  the  schools  and  achieves  a 
certain  naivete.  The  efforts  of  Moussorgsky 
were  analogous.  He  employed  leading  motives 
charily,  and  as  he  disliked  intricate  polyphony, 
his  music  moves  in  massive  blocks,  following 
the  semi-detached  tableaux  of  the  opera. 

But  a  man  is  never  entirely  the  master  of  his 
genius,  and  while  Moussorgsky  fought  the  stars 
in  their  courses,  he  nevertheless  poured  out 
upon  paper  the  richest  colours  and  images, 
created  human  characters  and  glorified  the 
''people."  He  "went  to  the  people,"  to  the 
folk-melody,  and  in  Pushkin  he  found  the  his 
torical  story  of  Czar  Boris,  neuropathic,  crimi 
nal,  and  half  crazy,  which  he  manipulated  to 
serve  his  purpose.  The  chorus  is  the  protago 
nist,  despite  the  stirring  dramatic  scenes  al 
lotted  to  Boris.  After  all,  the  "people,"  that 
mystic  quantity  in  Russian  art,  must  have  a 

195 


A  MUSICAL  PRIMITIVE: 

spokesman.  Notwithstanding  this  every  tune 
to  be  found  in  Pratsch's  Russian  anthology,  and 
utilised  by  the  new  men,  was  composed  by  an 
individual  man.  Art  is  never  democratic,  but  it 
is  all  the  stronger  when  it  incarnates  the  woes 
and  joys  of  the  people  —  not  quite  the  same 
thing  as  being  composed  by  the  "people."  The 
tree  is  rooted  in  the  soil,  but  the  tree  stands 
alone  in  the  forest.  The  moujik  dominates  the 
stage,  even  after  the  generous  lopping  from  the 
partition  of  some  of  the  choruses. 

The  feeling  for  comedy  which  is  to  be  found 
in  many  of  the  songs  is  not  missing  in  the  stage 
work.  Moussorgsky  loved  Gogol,  set  his  Le 
Manage  to  music  (only  one  act)  and  savoured 
the  salty  humour  of  the  great  writer.  But  the 
composer  has  his  tragic  side,  and  therein  he 
reminds  me  of  Dostoievsky  —  both  men  died 
during  the  same  year — -who  but  Dostoievsky, 
if  he  had  been  a  composer,  could  have  written 
the  malediction  scene  in  Boris?  As  a  matter 
of  fact  he  did  write  a  play  on  the  same  histor 
ical  subject,  but  it  has  disappeared.  There  are 
many  other  contacts  with  Dostoievsky  —  in 
tense  Slavophilism,  adoration  of  Russia;  its 
very  soil  is  sacred;  carelessness  as  to  the  ex 
ternals  of  their  art  —  a  Chinese  asymmetry  is 
present  in  their  architectonic;  they  both  excel 
in  portraying  humour,  broad,  vulgar,  uproarious, 
outrageous,  reckless  humour;  and  also  in  expos 
ing  the  profundities  of  the  Russian  soul,  es 
pecially  the  soul  racked  by  evil  and  morbid 
196 


MODESTE  MOUSSORGSKY 

thoughts.  Dostoievsky  said:  "The  soul  of 
another  is  a  dark  place,  and  the  Russian  soul  is 
a  dark  place.  .  .  ."  The  obsession  of  the  ab 
normal  is  marked  in  novelist  and  composer. 
They  are  revolutionists,  but  in  the  heaven  of  the 
insurgent  there  are  many  mansions.  (Beethoven 
—  a  letter  to  Zmeskell  —  wrote:  "Might  is  the 
morality  of  men  who  distinguish  themselves 
above  others.  It  is  my  morality,  anyhow.") 
Dostoievsky  and  Moussorgsky  were  not  unlike 
temperamentally.  Dostoievsky  always  repented 
in  haste  only  to  sin  again  at  leisure;  with  Mous 
sorgsky  it  was  the  same.  Both  men  suffered 
from  some  sort  of  moral  lesion.  Dostoievsky 
was  an  epileptic,  and  the  nature  of  Moussorg- 
sky's  "mysterious  nervous  ailment"  is  unknown 
to  me;  possibly  it  was  a  mild  or  masked  epilepsy. 
Moussorgsky  was  said  to  have  been  a  heavy 
drinker  —  his  biographer  speaks  of  him  as  being 
"ravaged  by  alcohol"  —a  failing  not  rare  in 
Russia.  The  "inspissated  gloom"  of  his  work, 
its  tenebrous  gulfs  and  musical  vertigoes  are 
true  indices  of  his  morbid  pathology.  He  was 
of  a  pious  nature,  as  was  Dostoievsky;  but  he 
might  have  subscribed  to  the  truth  of  Remy  de 
Gourmont's  epigram:  "Religion  est  1'hopital  de 
I'amour."  Love,  however,  does  not  play  a 
major  role  in  his  life  or  art,  yet  it  permeates 
both,  in  a  sultry,  sensual  manner. 

Boris  Godounow  was  successfully  produced 
January  24,  1874,  at  the  St.  Petersburg  Opera 
with  a  satisfactory  cast.    At  once  its  native 
197 


A  MUSICAL  PRIMITIVE: 

power  was  felt  and  its  appalling  longueurs,  tech 
nical  crudities  and  minor  shortcomings  were 
recognised  as  the  inevitable  slag  in  the  profu 
sion  of  rich  ore.  A  Russian  opera,  more  Rus 
sian  than  Glinka!  It  was  the  "high  noon,"  as 
Nietzsche  would  say,  of  the  composer  —  the  lat 
ter  part  of  whose  career  was  clouded  by  a  mo 
rose  pessimism  and  disease.  There  is  much 
ugly  music,  but  it  is  always  characteristic.  De 
spite  the  ecclesiastical  modes  and  rare  harmonic 
progressions  the  score  is  Muscovite,  not  Oriental 
—  the  latter  element  is  a  stumbling-block  in  the 
development  of  so  many  Russian  composers. 
The  melancholy  is  Russian,  the  tunes  are  Rus 
sian,  and  the  inn-scene,  apart  from  the  differ 
ence  of  historical  periods,  is  as  Russian  as  Gogol. 
No  opera  ever  penned  is  less  "literary,"  less 
"operatic,"  or  more  national  than  this  one. 

Rimsky-Korsakof,  who  died  only  a  few  years 
ago,  was  the  junior  of  Moussorgsky  (born  1844), 
and  proved  during  the  latter's  lifetime,  and 
after  his  death,  an  unshaken  friendship.  The 
pair  dwelt  together  for  some  time  and  criticised 
each  other's  work.  If  Balakirev  laid  the  foun 
dation  of  Moussorgsky's  musical  education  (in 
composition,  not  piano-playing)  Rimsky-Korsa 
kof  completed  it;  as  far  as  he  could.  The  mu 
sical  gift  of  the  latter  was  more  lyrical  than  any 
of  his  fellow  students'  at  Balakirev's.  Without 
having  a  novel  "message,"  he  developed  as  a 
master-painter  in  orchestration.  He  belongs  in 
the  category  of  composers  who  are  more  prolific 
198 


MODESTE  MOUSSORGSKY 

in  the  coining  of  images  than  the  creation  of 
ideas.  He  "played  the  sedulous  ape"  to  Ber 
lioz  and  it  was  natural,  with  his  fanciful  imag 
ination  and  full-blooded  temperament,  that  his 
themes  are  clothed  in  shining  orchestration,  that 
his  formal  sense  would  work  to  happier  ends 
within  the  elastic  form  of  the  Liszt  symphonic 
poem.  He  wrote  symphonies  and  a  "symphoni- 
ette"  on  Russian  themes,  but  his  genius  is  best 
displayed  in  freer  forms.  His  third  symphony, 
redolent  of  Haydn,  with  a  delightful  scherzo, 
his  fugues,  quartet,  ballets,  operas  —  he  com 
posed  fifteen,  some  of  which  are  still  popular 
in  Russia  —  prove  him  a  past  master  in  his 
technical  medium;  but  the  real  engaging  and 
fantastic  personality  of  the  man  evaporates  in 
his  academic  work.  He  is  at  his  top  notch  in 
Sadko,  with  its  depiction  of  both  a  calm  and 
stormy  sea;  in  Antar,  with  its  evocation  of  vast, 
immemorial  deserts;  in  Scheherazade,  and  its 
background  of  Bagdad  and  the  fascinating 
atmosphere  of  the  Arabian  Nights. 

The  initial  Sunday  in  December,  1878,  at 
Paris,  was  a  memorable  afternoon  for  me.  (I 
was  then  writing  "special"  stories  to  the  Phil 
adelphia  Evening  Bulletin,  and  the  rereading  of 
my  article  in  print  has  refreshed  my  memory.)  I 
heard  for  the  first  time  the  music  of  Rimsky- 
Korsakof,  also  the  name  of  Modeste  Moussorg- 
sky.  The  symphonic  poem,  Sadko,  was  hissed 
and  applauded  at  a  Pasdeloup  concert  in  the 
Cirque  d'Hiver,  for  the  new  music  created,  on 
199 


A  MUSICAL  PRIMITIVE: 

the  whole,  a  disturbing  impression.  To  quiet 
the  rioting  in  the  audience  —  it  came  to  shouts 
and  fisticuffs  —  the  conductor,  Jacques  Pasde- 
loup  (whose  real  name  was  Jacob  Wolfgang) 
played  Weber's  Invitation  to  the  Valse,  ar 
ranged  by  Berlioz,  which  tribute  to  a  national 
composer  —  neglected  when  alive,  glorified  after 
death  —  put  the  huge  gathering  of  musical 
"chauvinistes"  into  better  humour.  Sitting 
next  to  me  and  rather  amused,  I  fancy,  be 
cause  of  my  enthusiasm  for  Sadko,  was  a  young 
Russian,  a  student  at  the  Sorbonne.  He  liked 
Rimsky-Korsakof  and  understood  the  new  music 
better  than  I,  and  explained  to  me  that  Sadko 
was  too  French,  too  much  Berlioz,  not  enough 
Tartar.  I  didn't,  at  the  time,  take  all  this  in, 
nor  did  I  place  much  credence  in  his  declaration 
that  Russia  had  a  young  man  living  in  St. 
Petersburg,  its  greatest  composer,  a  truly  na 
tional  one,  as  national  as  Taras  Boulba,  or 
Dead  Souls.  Moussorgsky  was  his  name,  and 
despite  his  impoverished  circumstances,  or  prob 
ably  because  of  them,  he  was  burning  the  can 
dle  at  both  ends  and  in  the  middle.  He  had 
finished  his  masterpieces  before  1878.  I  was 
not  particularly  impressed  and  I  never  saw  the 
Russian  student  again  though  I  often  went  to 
the  Sorbonne.  I  was  therefore  interested  in 
1896  when  Pierre  d'Alheim's  monograph  ap 
peared  and  I  recalled  the  name  of  Moussorgsky, 
but  it  was  only  several  seasons  ago  and  at  Paris 
I  heard  for  the  first  time  both  his  operas. 
200 


MODESTE  MOUSSORGSKY 

In  1889  Rimsky-Korsakof  directed  two  con 
certs  of  Russian  music  at  the  Trocadero  and 
Paris  fell  in  love  with  his  compositions.  He  not 
only  orchestrated  the  last  opera  of  his  friend 
Moussorgsky,  but  also  Dargomyjski's  The  Stone 
Guest,  and  with  the  assistance  of  his  pupil, 
Glazounow,  completed  the  score  of  Prince  Igor, 
by  Borodine.  He  was  an  indefatigable  work 
man,  and  his  fame  will  endure  because  of  "han 
dling"  of  gorgeous  orchestral  tints.  He  is  an 
impressionist,  a  stylist,  the  reverse  of  Moussorg 
sky,  and  he  has  the  "conscience  of  the  ear" 
which  his  friend  lacked.  Praised  by  Liszt,  ad 
mired  by  Von  Biilow,  he  revealed  the  influence 
of  the  Hungarian.  Profound  psychologist  he 
was  not;  an  innovator,  like  Moussorgsky  he 
never  would  have  been;  the  tragic  eloquence 
vouchsafed  Tschaikovsky  was  denied  him.  But 
he  wielded  a  brush  of  incomparable  richness,  he 
spun  the  most  evanescent  and  iridescent  web, 
previous  to  the  arrival  of  Debussy:  he  is  the 
Berlioz  of  Russia,  as  Moussorgsky  is  its  greatest 
nationalist  in  tone. 

I  make  this  discursion  because,  for  a  period, 
the  paths  of  the  two  composers  were  parallel. 
Tschaikovsky  did  not  admire  Moussorgsky, 
spoke  slightingly  of  his  abilities,  though  he  con 
ceded  that  with  all  his  roughness  he  had  power 
of  a  repellent  order.  Turgenieff  did  not  under 
stand  him.  The  opera  La  Khovanchtchina, 
notwithstanding  the  preponderance  of  the  cho 
rus  —  in  Russia  choral  singing  is  the  founda- 

2OI 


A  MUSICAL  PRIMITIVE 

tion  of  musical  culture  —  I  found  more  "oper 
atic"  than  Boris  Godounow.  The  Old  Believers 
become  as  much  of  a  bore  as  the  Anabaptists 
in  Meyerbeer;  the  intrigue  of  the  second  plan 
not  very  vital;  but  as  a  composition  it  is  more 
finished  than  its  predecessor.  The  women  are 
more  attractive,  the  lyric  elements  better  de 
veloped,  but  the  sense  of  barbaric  grandeur  of 
Boris  is  not  evoked;  nor  is  its  dark  stream  of 
cruelty  present.  Doubtless  the  belief  that  Mo- 
deste  Moussorgsky  is  a  precursor  of  much  modern 
music  is  founded  on  truth,  and  while  his  musical 
genius  is  not  to  be  challenged,  yet  do  I  believe 
that  he  has  been  given  too  lofty  a  position  in  art. 
At  the  best  his  work  is  unachieved,  truncated, 
a  torso  of  what  might  have  been  a  noble  statue. 
But  it  will  endure.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  a 
time  when,  for  Russia,  Boris  Godounow  will 
cease  to  thrill. 


202 


XI 

NEW   PLAYS   BY  HAUPTMANN, 

SUDERMANN,  AND 

SCHNITZLER 


IN  the  present  volume  I  have  examined,  more 
out  of  curiosity  than  interest,  the  figures  of 
Zola's  book  sales.  To  my  astonishment,  not  to 
say  chagrin,  I  noted  that  Nana  and  The  Down 
fall  had  bigger  sales  than  the  other  novels; 
Nana  probably  because  of  its  unpleasant  coarse 
ness,  and  The  Downfall  because  of  its  national 
character.  Now,  neither  of  these  books  gives 
Zola  at  his  best.  Huysmans  had  not  only  pre 
ceded  Nana  by  two  years,  but  beat  his  master, 
with  Marthe  —  the  Paris  edition  was  quickly 
suppressed  —  as  it  is  a  better-written  and  truer 
book  than  the  story  of  the  big  blonde  girl,  who 
was  later  so  wonderfully  painted  by  Edouard 
Manet  as  she  stood  in  her  dressing-room  at  the 
theatre. 

How  far  we  are  away  from  the  powerful  but 
crass  realism  of  1880  I  thought  as  I  sat  in  the 
Lessing  Theatre,  Berlin,  and  waited  for  the  cur 
tain  to  rise  on  Gerhart  Hauptmann's  latest  play, 
203 


NEW  PLAYS  BY  HAUPTMANN, 

The  Flight  of  Gabriel  Schilling  (Gabriel  Schill 
ing's  Flucht).  And  yet  how  much  this  poet  and 
mystic  owes  to  the  French  naturalistic  move 
ment  of  thirty  odd  years  ago.  It  was  Arno 
Holz  and  the  young  Hauptmann  who  stood  the 
brunt  of  the  battle  in  Germany  for  the  new 
realism.  Sudermann,  too,  joined  in  the  fight, 
though  later.  Arthur  Schnitzler  was  then  a 
medical  student  in  Vienna,  and  it  was  not  till 
1888  that  he  modestly  delivered  himself  in  a 
volume  of  verse,  while  Frank  Wedekind,  was 
just  beginning  to  stretch  his  poetical  limbs  and 
savour  life  in  Paris  and  London.  (Eleven  years 
later  (1891)  he  gave  us  his  most  pregnant  drama, 
young  as  he  was,  Spring's  Awakening.)  It  is 
only  fair,  then,  to  accord  to  the  recent  winner 
of  the  Nobel  Prize,  Gerhart  Hauptmann,  the 
credit  due  him  as  a  path  breaker  in  German 
literature,  for  if  Arno  Holz  showed  the  way, 
Hauptmann  filled  the  road  with  works  of  ar 
tistic  value;  even  at  his  lowest  ebb  of  inspira 
tion  he  is  significant  and  attractive. 

But  Hauptmann  is  something  more  than  a 
realist;  if  he  were  only  that  I  should  not  have 
begun  my  story  with  a  reference  to  the  Zola 
book  sales.  There  were  published  a  short  time 
ago  the  complete  works  of  Gerhart  Hauptmann 
—  poems,  social  plays,  novels,  and  tales  in  six 
stately  volumes.  In  glancing  at  the  figures  of 
his  sales  I  could  not  help  thinking  of  Zola. 
Whereas  Nana  stands  high  on  the  list,  The 
Sunken  Bell  (Die  Versunkene  Glocke,  translated 
204 


SUDERMANN,  AND   SCHNITZLER 

by  Charles  Henry  Meltzer,  and  played  in  Eng 
lish  by  Julia  Marlowe  and  Edward  Sothern), 
has  reached  its  eightieth  edition,  and  remember 
that  the  German  editions  are  sometimes  two 
thousand  or  three  thousand  an  edition.  What 
the  translation  figures  are  I  have  no  idea.  The 
next  in  number  to  The  Sunken  Bell  is  The 
Weavers,  forty-three  editions.  Its  strong  note 
of  pity,  its  picture  of  poignant  misery,  and  its 
eloquent  cry  for  social  justice,  had  much  to  do 
with  the  large  sales.  Hannele  is  number  three 
in  the  order  of  sales,  twenty-three  editions  being 
assigned  to  it.  The  same  number  stands  for 
Der  Arme  Heinrich,  not  the  best  Hauptmann, 
and  for  that  most  moving  human  play,  Rose 
Bernd  —  so  marvellously  enacted  by  Else  Leh- 
mann  at  the  Lessing  Theatre  —  there  are  eight 
een  editions.  (These  are  1913  figures.) 

You  can't  help  contrasting  Parisian  and  Ber 
lin  taste,  though  the  German  capital  is  in  the 
grip  of  pornographic  literature  and  art.  But  it 
does  indicate  that  a  nation  has  not  lost  its  ideal 
ism  when  it  reads  such  a  beautiful  work,  a  work 
of  such  imagination  as  The  Sunken  Bell,  does 
it  not?  I  wish  I  could  admire  other  of  Haupt- 
mann's  work,  such  as  Michael  Kramer,  Der 
Biberpalz,  or  the  depressing  Fuhrmann  Hen- 
schel.  And  I  also  wish  that  I  could  include 
among  his  big  works  his  latest,  The  Flight  of 
Gabriel  Schilling  (written  in  1906). 

It  is  a  drama,  the  story  of  slender  interest, 
because  the  characters  do  not  particularly  in- 
205 


NEW  PLAYS  BY  HAUPTMANN, 

terest  —  the  misunderstood  humbug  of  a  woman 
—  but  in  an  original  setting,  a  little  island  on 
the  east  coast  of  Germany,  called  Fischmeisters 
Oye,  the  scenic  side  is  very  effective.  The  piece 
plays  in  five  acts,  one  act  too  many,  and  is  slow 
in  action,  and  unusually  wordy,  even  for  the 
German  stage,  where  the  public  likes  dialogues 
a  half-hour  at  a  stretch.  I  shall  not  bore  you 
with  more  than  a  glance  at  the  chief  situations. 
Gabriel  Schilling  is  a  young  Berlin  painter  who 
is  too  fond  of  the  Friedrichstrasse  cafe  life, 
which  means  wine,  wenches,  and  an  occasional 
song.  His  friend  the  sculptor,  Professor  Maiirer, 
has  persuaded  Gabriel  to  leave  Berlin  during  the 
dog-days,  leave  what  the  text  calls  the  "hot, 
stinking  asphalt,"  and  join  him  at  the  seaside. 
Gabriel  has  a  wife,  to  whom  he  is  not  exactly 
nice,  being  fond  of  a  Vienna  lady,  who  bears 
the  name  of  Hanna  Elias.  This  Hanna  Elias 
has  played,  still  plays,  the  chief  role  in  his  mis 
erable  existence.  He  has  promised  to  give  her 
up,  she  has  promised  to  go  back  to  her  hus 
band  and  child  (the  latter  supposed  to  be  the 
offspring  of  Gabriel).  So  his  flight  to  the  east 
coast  is  a  genuine  attempt  to  gain  his  liberty; 
besides,  his  health  is  bad,  he  suffers  from  heart 
trouble.  The  play  opens  with  the  sculptor  talk 
ing  of  Schilling  in  the  ears  of  a  young  violinist, 
a  dear  friend,  who  is  summering  with  him. 
Unconventional  folk,  all  of  them.  Hauptmann 
gets  his  character  relief  by  setting  off  the  town 
visitors  with  a  background  of  natives,  fisher- 
206 


SUDERMANN,  AND   SCHNITZLER 

men,  working  people.  I  wish  there  had  been 
more  of  them,  for  with  their  uncouth  accent, 
salt  speech,  and  unconscious  humour  they  are 
more  refreshing  than  the  city  folk.  Gabriel  ar 
rives.  He  looks  sadly  in  need  of  sea  air.  I 
suppose  Theodore  Loos,  who  played  the  part, 
was  coached  by  the  dramatist,  so  I  dare  not 
criticise  the  validity  of  his  interpretation.  I 
only  know  that  he  did  not  make  the  character 
sympathetic;  perhaps  that  were  an  impossibil 
ity.  In  a  word,  with  his  mixture  of  vapid  ideal 
ism  and  old-fashioned  fatalism,  he  proved  mo 
notonous  to  me.  The  sculptor  is  a  formidable 
bore,  the  antique  raisonneur  of  French  drama, 
preaching  at  every  pore  every  chance  he  has. 
The  actor  who  played  him,  Hans  Marr,  made 
up  as  a  mixture  of  Lenbach  the  painter  —  when 
he  was  about  forty-five  —  and  the  painter, 
etcher,  and  sculptor,  Max  Klinger.  The  violin 
ist  was  Lina  Lessen,  and  excellent  in  the  part. 

Act  II  is  a  capitally  arranged  interior  of  the 
inn,  with  the  wooden  shoes  of  the  servant  maid 
clopping  around,  where  the  inevitable  happens. 
Hanna  Elias,  accompanied  by  a  young  Russian 
girl  —  whose  German  accent  furnishes  mild  hu 
mour  —  promptly  swoops  down  on  the  anaemic 
painter.  There  is  brief  resistance  on  his  part. 
She  tells  him  she  can't,  can't  live  without  him 
—  oh,  thrice-familiar  feminine  music !  —  and 
with  a  double  sob  that  shakes  you  in  your  seat 
the  pair  embrace.  Curtain.  The  next  act  is 
frittered  away  in  talk,  the  principal  object  seem- 
207 


NEW  PLAYS  BY  HAUPTMANN, 

ingly  to  show  how  much  the  sculptor  hates 
Hanna.  In  Act  IV  Gabriel  is  ill.  He  has  had 
a  fall,  but  it  is  really  a  heart  attack.  A  doctor, 
an  old  friend,  is  summoned  from  a  neighbour 
ing  island.  Unfortunately  Mrs.  Schilling,  the 
neglected  wife  is  informed  by  the  not  very  tact 
ful  doctor  that  her  husband  is  ill.  She  rushes 
up  from  Berlin,  and  the  best,  indeed  the  only, 
dramatic  scene  then  ensues.  She  is  not  per 
mitted  to  see  the  sick  man.  She  demands  the 
reason.  She  is  naturally  not  told,  for  Hanna  is 
nursing  him.  She  can't  understand,  and  it  is 
the  difficult  task  of  Lucie  Heil,  the  violinist,  to 
get  her  away  before  the  fat  is  in  the  fire.  Un 
fortunately,  at  that  critical  moment,  Hanna  Elias 
walks  calmly  from  Gabriel's  sleeping  chamber. 
The  row  is  soon  on.  Hanna  was  enacted  by  an 
emotional  actress,  Tilla  Durieux,  whose  person 
ality  is  forthright,  whose  methods  are  natural. 
(Her  Hedda  Gabler  is  strong.)  She  dressed  the 
character  after  the  approved  Friedrichstrasse 
style.  You  must  know  that  the  artistic  Bohe- 
mienne  wears  her  hair  plastered  at  the  sides  of 
her  head  a  la  Merode.  The  eyes  are  always 
"done  up,"  the  general  expression  suggested,  if 
the  lady  is  dark,  being  that  of  Franz  von  Stuck's 
picture,  Sin.  To  look  mysterious,  sinister,  ex 
otic,  ah !  that  appeals  to  the  stout,  sentimental 
German  beer  heroes  of  the  opera,  theatre,  and 
studio.  Fraulein  Durieux  is  entirely  success 
ful  in  her  assumption  of  a  woman  who  is  "eman 
cipated,"  who  has  thrown  off  the  "shackles"  of 
208 


SUDERMANN,  AND   SCHNITZLER 

matrimony,  who  drinks  beer  in  the  morning,  tea 
in  the  afternoon,  coffee  at  night,  and  smokes 
cigarettes  all  the  time.  It  is  a  pronounced  type 
in  Berlin.  She  talks  art,  philosophy,  literature, 
and  she  daubs  or  plays  or  models.  She  is  the 
best  portrait  in  the  play,  though  a  thrice-fa 
miliar  one.  The  poet  showed  this  "misunder 
stood  woman"  in  one  of  his  early  works,  Before 
Sunrise. 

Hanna  Elias  stands  the  reproaches  and  berat 
ing  of  Evelin  Schilling  until  her  patience  fades. 
Then  the  two  women,  despite  the  warning  of  the 
doctor  that  his  patient  must  not  be  disturbed, 
as  it  might  prove  fatal,  go  for  each  other  like 
a  pair  of  fishwives.  It  is  exciting,  though  hardly 
edifying.  If  you  have  ever  seen  two  chickens, 
two  hens,  fight  over  the  possession  of  a  shining 
slug  in  a  barnyard,  then  you  will  know  what 
kind  of  a  quarrel  this  is  between  the  outraged 
wife,  a  feeble  creature,  and  the  bold,  strong- 
willed  Hanna.  And  the  disputed  booty  is  about 
as  worthless  as  the  slug.  Gabriel  appears.  He 
is  half  dead  from  the  excitement.  A  plague  on 
both  the  women,  he  cries,  and  the  scene  closes 
with  his  whispered  request  to  the  doctor  for 
poison  to  end  his  life.  You  remember  Oswald 
Alving  and  his  cry:  "The  sun,  mother,  give  me 
the  sun!"  Act  last  shows  the  first  scene,  the 
beach,  and  a  figurehead  from  a  brig  which  had 
stranded  during  a  storm  some  years  before. 
This  carved  head  and  bust  of  a  woman  with 
streaming  hair  serves  as  a  symbol.  Gabriel  is 
209 


NEW  PLAYS  BY  HAUPTMANN, 

attracted  by  the  wooden  image,  as  is  Lucie. 
The  painter  is  fascinated  by  the  tale  of  the  ship 
wreck.  He  has  escaped  the  nurse  and  is  out  on 
the  dunes  watching  the  figure  as  it  is  intermit 
tently  illuminated  by  the  gleam  of  a  revolving 
lighthouse  further  up  the  coast.  He  is  in  an 
exalted  mood.  There  is  some  comic  relief  in  the 
grave-digger  manner  between  him  and  a  joiner, 
who  is  also  the  undertaker  of  the  island,  a  well- 
conceived  character.  A  storm  is  rising.  Ga 
briel,  after  many  wild  and  whirling  words,  leaves 
a  message  for  his  friends.  He  is  bathing.  And 
so  he  makes  by  suicide  his  last  flight,  his  escape 
from  the  horns  of  the  dilemma,  too  weak  to  de 
cide  one  way  or  the  other.  The  ending  is  inef 
fective,  and  the  sudden  repentance  of  the  mid 
dle-aged  sculptor  (fat  men  with  forty-five-inch 
waists  never  do  seem  wicked),  who  promises  to 
marry  his  Lucie,  the  fiddle  player,  is  very  flat. 
Nor  does  the  storm  strike  terror  as  it  should. 
What  the  moral?  I  don't  know,  except  that  it 
is  dangerous  to  keep  late  hours  on  the  Fried- 
richstrasse.  A  clock  can't  always  strike  twelve, 
and  The  Flight  of  Gabriel  Schilling,  notwith 
standing  some  striking  episodes  and  at  moments 
poetic  atmosphere,  is  not  a  masterpiece  of 
Hauptmann. 

II 

Ever  since  I  heard  and  saw  Agnes  Sorma  in 
Liebele,  I  have  admired  the  dramatic  writings  of 
Arthur  Schnitzler,  and,  remember,  that  charm- 
210 


SUDERMANN,  AND   SCHNITZLER 

ing,  withal  sad,  little  play  was  written  in  1895. 
I  haven't  seen  all  his  works,  but  I  have  read 
many.  The  latest  adapted  into  English  for  the 
American  stage  is  the  Anatol  one-act  cyclus 
(1893),  and  his  new  play  I  witnessed  at  the 
Kleines  Theatre,  Berlin.  It  bears  the  singu 
larly  unpromising  title  Professor  Bernhardi,  and 
is  a  five-act  comedy.  Its  performance  was  in 
terdicted  in  Vienna.  The  reason  given  by  the 
Austrian  authorities  seems  a  simple  one,  though 
it  is  specious:  for  fear  of  stirring  up  religious 
animosities  Professor  Bernhardi  was  placed  on 
the  black  books  of  the  censor.  The  Jewish 
question,  it  appears,  is  still  a  live  one  in 
Austria,  and  this  new  play  of  Schnitzler's,  him 
self  of  Semitic  descent,  is  the  very  frank  dis 
cussion  of  a  certain  incident  which  occurred 
in  Vienna  in  which  a  Roman  Catholic  clergy 
man  and  a  Jewish  doctor  were  embroiled.  The 
dramatist  is  fair,  he  holds  the  scales  evenly. 
At  the  end  of  the  piece  both  priest  and  surgeon 
stand  alike  in  your  regard.  That  the  incident 
hardly  suggests  dramatic  treatment  is  beside  the 
mark;  Schnitzler,  with  his  invariable  deftness  of 
touch,  has  painted  a  dozen  vital  portraits;  the 
priest  is  superb,  the  character  values  of  exqui 
site  balance.  The  hero,  if  hero  he  be,  Professor 
Bernhardi,  is  carved  out  of  a  single  block  and 
the  minor  personalities  are  each  and  every  one 
salient.  I  can't  altogether  believe  in  the  thesis. 
Any  one  who  has  lived  in  Vienna  must  know 
that,  except  in  certain  restricted  circles,  there 
211 


NEW  PLAYS  BY  HAUPTMANN, 

is  no  Judenhetz,  no  social  ostracism  for  He 
brews.  At  the  eleven-o'clock  high  mass  in  St. 
Stefan's  Cathedral,  the  numbers  of  Oriental 
faces  that  one  sees  would  be  surprising  if  we 
did  not  hear  of  so  many  conversions.  It  is 
considered  rather  fashionable  in  Vienna  to  join 
the  Christian  fold.  And  on  the  score  of  busi 
ness  certainly  the  Austrian  Hebrews  have  little 
to  complain  of,  as  they  are  said  to  be  the 
leading  factors  in  commerce.  However,  Henry 
James  has  warned  us  not  to  question  too  closely 
the  theme  of  an  artist;  that  is  his  own  affair; 
his  treatment  should  concern  us.  Has  Schnitz- 
ler  succeeded  in  making  a  play  of  heterogeneous 
material?  I  don't  think  he  has  altogether,  yet 
I  enjoyed  several  acts  and  enjoyed  still  more 
the  reading  of  it  in  book  form. 

Professor  Bernhardi  is  the  professor  of  a  med 
ical  institute  in  Vienna  known  as  the  Elizabeth- 
inum.  A  patient,  a  young  woman,  is  dying  in 
one  of  the  wards,  the  victim  of  malpractice. 
But  her  passing  away  will  be  painless.  She  is 
happy  because  she  believes  that  she  is  on  the 
road  to  recovery,  that  she  will  live  to  marry 
her  beloved  young  man.  Euphoria,  the  doctor 
calls  her  conolition.  To  tell  her  the  truth  would 
be  in  his  eyes  criminal.  She  would  die  in  an 
guish.  Why  not  let  her  go  out  of  the  world 
in  bliss?  But  a  female  nurse,  a  conscientious 
Roman  Catholic,  thinks  differently.  With  the 
aid  of  a  budding  student  she  sends  for  Father 
Franz  Reder  in  the  near-by  Church  of  the 
212 


SUDERMANN,  AND   SCHNITZLER 

Holy  Florian.  The  priest  obeys  the  summons, 
anxious  to  shrive  a  sinning  soul,  and  to  send 
her  out  of  the  world  if  not  to  Paradise,  at 
least  to  Purgatory.  In  the  office  he  encounters 
Professor  Bernhardi,  who  tells  him  politely  but 
firmly  that  he  won't  allow  his  patient  to  be 
disturbed.  The  priest,  without  excitement  but 
painfully  impressed,  argues  that,  even  if  there 
are  a  few  moments  of  sorrow,  the  saving  of  the 
girl's  immortal  soul  is  of  paramount  importance. 
The  physician  shrugs  his  shoulders.  His  busi 
ness  is  with  the  body,  not  the  soul,  and  he  con 
tinues  to  bar  the  way.  The  priest  makes  one 
last  appeal,  uselessly;  but,  unperceived,  the 
nurse  has  slipped  out,  and  going  to  the  bedside 
of  the  dying  woman  announces  the  advent  of 
the  holy  man.  The  patient  screams  in  agony: 
"I  am  dying!"  and  she  does  die,  from  fright. 
Bernhardi  is  enraged,  though  he  never  loses  his 
air  of  sardonic  politeness.  The  act  ends.  The 
result  of  the  incident,  magnified  by  a  partisan 
press,  is  serious.  A  great  lady,  an  archduchess, 
refuses  to  head  the  list  of  the  Elizabethinum  an 
nual  charity  ball.  She  also  snubs  the  wife  of 
an  aristocratic  doctor.  The  politicians  make 
fuel  for  their  furnace,  and  presently  the  insti 
tution  finds  itself  facing  a  grave  deficit,  per 
haps  ruin,  for  the  minister  of  instruction  does 
not  favour  further  subventions,  though  he  is  a 
school  friend  of  Bernhardi;  worse  follows,  the 
board  of  directors  is  split,  some  of  its  Jewish 
members  going  so  far  as  to  say  that  Bernhardi 
213 


NEW  PLAYS  BY  HAUPTMANN, 

should  not  have  refused  the  consolations  of  re 
ligion  to  the  dying.  Wasn't  the  Elizabethinum 
Roman  Catholic,  after  all? 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  reason  Ar 
thur  Schnitzler  enjoyed  handling  the  difficulties 
of  such  a  theme  is  because  his  father  was  a 
well-known  laryngologist  of  the  University  of 
Vienna,  and  he  himself  studied  medicine  and 
was  an  assistant  doctor  from  1886  to  1888  in 
the  principal  hospital  of  Vienna.  With  his 
father  he  helped  to  write  a  book  entitled:  The 
Clinical  Atlas  of  Laryngology  (1895).  Hence 
his  opportunity  of  studying  the  various  types 
of  Viennese  professors  in  a  little  world  must 
have  been  excellent.  The  veracity  of  his  char 
acters  seems  unimpeachable.  There  are  all 
kinds  of  Jews  —  in  Europe  there  is  no  such 
false  sensitiveness  if  a  Jewish  type  is  portrayed 
on  the  boards,  so  long  as  it  is  not  offensive; 
for  example,  there  is  the  Jew  who  believes  him 
self  the  victim  of  anti-Semitism,  and,  while  the 
dramatist  makes  him  "sympathetic,"  neverthe 
less  he  is  funny  with  his  mania  of  persecution. 
Then  there  is  Doctor  Goldberg,  the  lawyer,  the 
counsel  for  Professor  Bernhardi,  in  the  prosecu 
tion  case  for  insulting  religion.  He  sends  his 
boy  to  a  Catholic  college,  his  wife  has  Chris 
tian  friends,  and  in  his  zeal  not  to  seem  friendly 
to  Bernhardi,  he  loses  the  case.  There  are  sev 
eral  others,  all  carefully  sketched  and  with  a 
certain  wit  that  proves  Schnitzler  is  as  fair  to 
his  coreligionists  as  to  the  Gentiles.  Let  me 
214 


SUDERMANN,  AND  SCHNITZLER 

hasten  to  add  that  there  is  nothing  that  would 
cause  offence  to  either  race  throughout  the  piece. 
Its  banning  in  Austria  is  therefore  a  mystery  to 
me,  as  it  must  have  been  to  the  author. 

What  is  more  serious  is  the  absence  of  marked 
dramatic  movement  in  the  play.  It  reads  much 
like  a  short  story  made  long  in  its  dramatic  garb. 
Fancy  a  play  all  men,  chiefly  bewhiskered;  one 
woman  in  Act  I,  and  only  for  ten  minutes; 
fairly  long-winded  arguments  for  and  against 
the  ethics  of  the  case.  Not  for  more  than  one 
act  would  this  capitally  written  work  be  toler 
ated  on  the  English  or  American  stage.  Until 
Act  IV  there  is  hardly  one  genuine  dramatic 
episode,  though  Bernhardi  at  a  directors'  meet 
ing  is  forced  to  resign  and  is  eventually  sent  to 
prison  for  two  months.  But  in  the  penultimate 
act  the  priest  calls  on  him,  and  for  fifteen  min 
utes  the  situation  is  strong  and  splendidly  con 
ceived.  The  conscience  of  the  ecclesiastic  brings 
him  to  Bernhardi,  not  to  confess,  but  to  explain. 

At  the  trial  he  positively  insisted  that  he  did 
not  believe  Bernhardi  had  wished  to  insult  re 
ligion,  but  that  he  followed  the  dictates  of  his 
conscience;  he  believed  that  he  was  doing  his 
duty  in  sparing  the  girl  the  pain  of  discovery. 
But  this  statement  was  of  no  avail,  for  the  nurse 
swore  that  the  professor  had  employed  physical 
violence  to  prevent  the  priest  from  entering  the 
hospital  ward.  Later  she  confesses  her  perjury. 
Bernhardi  is  pardoned,  is  convoyed  home  in 
triumph  by  enthusiastic  medical  students,  but 

215 


NEW  PLAYS  BY  HAUPTMANN, 

is  so  disgusted  by  the  perfidy  of  some  of  his 
friends  and  associates  that  he  returns  to  his  pri 
vate  practice.  His  argument  with  the  priest 
throws  light  on  his  obstinate  character;  in  reality 
neither  man  retreats  a  jot  from  his  original  posi 
tion.  I  must  add  that  the  priest,  because  of  his 
honest  attitude,  although  pressure  had  been  put 
upon  him,  was  relieved  of  his  duties  at  St. 
Florian's  and  sent  to  a  little  village  on  the 
Polish  border.  He  had  displeased  the  powers 
that  be.  Again  I  must  admire  this  portrait  of 
a  sincere  man,  obsessed  by  his  sense  of  duty,  a 
fanatic,  if  you  will,  but  upheld  by  his  supreme 
faith. 

The  acting  throughout  was  artistic,  Professor 
Bernhardi  impersonated  by  Bruno  Decarli,  and 
Father  Reder  by  Alfred  Abel,  the  latter  a  sub 
tle  characterisation.  The  "team  play"  of  the 
Kleines  Theatre  company  was  seen  at  its  best 
in  the  third  act,  where  the  directors  hold  a  stormy 
meeting.  It  was  the  perfection  of  ensemble 
work.  The  creator  of  Das  Siisse  Madel  type  of 
Vienna  has  painted  a  large  canvas  and  revealed 
a  grip  on  the  essentials  of  characterisation.  To 
Ibsen's  An  Enemy  of  the  People  he  is  evidently 
under  certain  obligations;  Professor  Bernhardi 
is  a  variation  of  Doctor  Stockmann,  plus  not  a 
little  irony  and  self-complacency.  But  the  the 
sis  of  Ibsen  is  less  academic,  sounder,  of  more 
universal  interest  than  Schnitzler's.  There  is 
no  metaphysical  hair-splitting  in  An  Enemy  of 
the  People,  nor  sentimental  talk  about  euphoria 
216 


SUDERMANN,  AND   SCHNITZLER 

and  going  happily  to  death.  Grim  old  Daddy 
Ibsen  told  us  that  people  were  being  poisoned 
by  impure  spring  water,  and,  as  Alan  Dale  said, 
was  the  first  man  to  write  a  drama  around  a 
drain-pipe.  Arthur  Schnitzler,  shedding  for  the 
nonce  his  accustomed  Viennese  charm  and  non 
chalance,  has  written  a  comedy  about  a  very 
grave  subject,  and  has  not  uttered  a  single  word 
that  can  be  construed  as  disrespectful  to  either 
religion,  Jewish  or  Roman  Catholic.  He  is  a 
genre  painter  almost  to  the  point  of  perfection. 

Ill 

Once  upon  a  time  I  called  Hermann  Suder- 
mann  the  Klingsor  of  the  German  stage,  mean 
ing  thereby  that  he  was  a  master  of  black  magic. 
Of  course,  like  most  comparisons,  this  was  a  far 
fetched  one.  Yet  Sudermann  is  a  master  of 
theatrical  machinery.  With  a  pressure  of  his 
little  finger  he  can  set  the  wheels  whirring  and 
make  their  noise  attractive  if  not  precisely  sig 
nificant.  This  is  the  case  with  his  latest  offer 
ing,  Der  gute  Ruf  (Good  Reputation),  which 
captured  Berlin  at  the  Deutsches  Schauspiel- 
haus  on  the  Friedrichstrasse.  The  play,  in  four 
acts,  is  a  variation  on  its  author's  early  theme, 
Honour.  It  is  also  a  variant  of  his  Joy  of  Life 
(Es  lebe  das  Leben),  translated  by  Edith  Whar- 
ton,  but  with  the  difference  that  the  motive  of 
Honour  was  more  malleable  for  the  purpose  of 
dramatic  treatment,  and  also  truer  to  life,  while 
217 


NEW  PLAYS  BY  HAUPTMANN, 

in  Reputation  (as  I  suppose  it  will  be  called 
when  translated)  the  thesis  is  too  incredible  for 
belief;  hence  the  magician,  wily  as  he  is,  scram 
bles  about  aimlessly  in  the  last  two  acts,  spar 
ring  for  wind,  and  seemingly  anxious  to  escape 
from  a  blind  alley  of  situations.  That  he  does  it 
so  well  is  a  tribute  to  his  technical  prowess. 

He  knows  how  to  write  a  play.  This  play 
would  succeed  in  foreign  countries  where  the 
Hauptmann  and  Schnitzler  plays  would  fall 
down.  The  reason  is  because  of  the  strong  the 
atrical  quality  of  the  piece,  and  the  grateful  role 
for  the  heroine,  a  role  that  might  have  been  writ 
ten  in  Paris;  indeed,  the  entire  work,  despite  its 
local  flavour,  recalls  the  modern  Parisian  theatre 
of  Bernstein  &  Co.,  because  of  its  cynical  satire, 
its  mysterious  intrigue,  its  doors  and  bells,  its 
numerous  exits  and  entrances. 

A  woman,  rather  a  superwoman,  the  Baron 
ess  von  Tanna,  sacrifices  her  name  —  not  of  the 
best  because  she  flirts  —  to  save  the  good,  nay, 
spotless  reputation  of  her  dearest  friend,  a  mil 
lionaire's  wife  —  who,  in  a  "mad  moment" 
(Aha!)  becomes  the  beloved  of  a  certain  fas 
cinating  Max,  a  young  and  handsome  ne'er-do- 
well.  To  add  to  the  piquancy  of  the  situation, 
the  baroness,  a  beautiful  woman,  and  not,  like 
her  friend,  the  mother  of  children,  is  entangled 
in  the  same  net;  she,  too,  adores  Max  the 
heart  crusher,  though  she  will  not  cross  the 
Rubicon  for  his  silly  sake.  The  usual  "tri 
angle"  becomes  star-shaped,  for  a  new  feminine 
218 


SUDERMANN,  AND   SCHNITZLER 

presence  appears,  a  girl  who  is  matched  to  marry 
the  fatal  Max.  That  makes  five  live  wires;  two 
husbands,  two  wives,  a  naive  virgin,  with  Max 
as  inaccessible  as  a  star.  But  after  a  capital  ex 
position,  Sudermann  gets  us  in  a  terrible  state 
of  mind  by  making  the  lady  with  the  good 
reputation  go  off  in  a  hysterical  crisis,  and 
almost  confess  to  her  stiff,  severe  husband  — 
who  is  a  maniac  on  the  subject  of  his  house 
being  above  suspicion.  The  charming,  reckless 
baroness  intervenes  at  the  crucial  point,  becomes 
a  lightning-rod  that  draws  the  electric  current, 
and  pretends  to  be  the  real  culprit.  Her  hus 
band,  a  sinister  baron  and  ex-lieutenant  in  the 
Hussars,  is  present.  A  duel  with  Max  is  the 
result.  In  the  last  act,  after  she  has  been  sub 
jected  to  all  kinds  of  ignominy,  Baroness  Dor- 
rit  von  Tanna,  without  confessing,  is  socially 
rehabilitated.  Skim-milk  in  this  instance  has 
passed  for  cream,  the  prudish  millionaire's  wife, 
her  honour  saved  for  the  world  at  large,  is  now 
revealed  as  a  hypocrite  to  her  astounded  and 
snobbish  husband.  The  curtain  falls  on  a  maze 
of  improbabilities,  with  the  baroness  in  the 
centre. 

For  people  who  don't  take  their  theatre  seri 
ously,  i.  e.,  neither  as  a  fencing  ground  for  prop 
agandists  nor  for  puling  poets,  this  new  Suder 
mann  piece  will  please.  It  has  triumphed  in 
Berlin  and  Munich.  Its  people  are  portraits 
taken  from  fashionable  West  End  Berlin,  while 
the  dialogue,  witty,  incisive,  and  also  charac- 
219 


NEW  PLAYS  BY  HAUPTMANN, 

teristic,  is  one  of  the  consolations  of  a  play  that 
does  not  for  a  moment  produce  any  illusion. 
There  are  plenty  of  striking  episodes,  but  logic 
is  lacking,  not  only  the  logic  of  life,  but  the 
logic  of  the  theatre.  No  living  playwright 
knows  better  how  to  arouse  suspense  than  Su 
dermann,  and  he  can't  make  us  believe  in  his 
false  theme,  consequently  his  motivation  in  the 
last  two  acts  is  false  and  disappointing.  But 
there  is  the  old  Sudermann  pyrotechnical  vir 
tuosity,  the  fireworks  dazzle  with  their  bril 
liancy,  and  you  think  of  Paris,  and  also  that  some 
drama  may  be  divorced  from  life  and  literature 
and  yet  be  interesting.  Insincere  as  is  the  de 
nouement,  the  note  of  insincerity  was  absent  in 
the  acting  of  the  cast.  The  honours  were  easily 
borne  away  by  a  pretty  Viennese  actress  from 
the  Volks  Theatre  there,  Elsa  Galafres  by  name, 
whose  methods  are  Gallic,  whose  personality  is 
charming.  Critical  Berlin  has  taken  her  to  itself, 
and  her  theatrical  fortune  is  made.  It  may  be 
confessed  that  her  part,  despite  its  artificiality, 
is  one  that  any  actress  in  the  world  would  jump 
at.  Sudermann  is  a  conjurer.  His  puppets  are 
all  agreeable,  and,  in  one  instance,  vital:  the 
father  of  the  baroness,  a  financier,  who  could 
be  easily  turned  into  a  "heavy"  conventional 
father,  but,  as  played  by  Hermann  Nissen,  is  a 
positively  original  characterisation.  Max  the 
butterfly  (Ernst  Dumcke)  was  wholly  admi 
rable.  I  shall  be  very  much  surprised  if  Der  gute 
Ruf  does  not  soon  appear  on  the  stage  of  other 
220 


SUDERMANN,   AND   SCHNITZLER 

lands.  Its  picture  of  manners,  its  mundane  en 
vironment,  its  epigrams  and  dramatic  bravoura 
will  make  it  welcome  everywhere.  Sudermann 
is  still  Klingsor,  the  evoker  of  artificial  figures, 
not  the  poet  who  creates  living  men  and  women. 


221 


XII 

KUBIN,   MUNCH,  AND   GAUGUIN: 
MASTERS  OF  HALLUCINATION 


BECAUSE  it  is  a  simpler  matter  to  tell  the 
truth  than  casuists  admit  I  shall  preface  this 
little  sermon  on  three  hallucinated  painters  by 
a  declaration  of  my  artistic  faith. 

I  believe  in  Velasquez,  Vermeer,  and  Rem 
brandt;  the  greatest  harmonist,  the  greatest 
painter  of  daylight,  and  the  profoundest  inter 
preter  of  the  human  soul  —  Rembrandt  as  pys- 
chologist  is  as  profound  as  Beethoven. 

The  selection  of  this  triune  group  of  genius, 
one  Spaniard  and  two  Dutchmen,  doesn't  mean 
that  I'm  insensible  to  the  purity  of  Raphael, 
the  rich  colouring  of  Titian,  or  the  giant  power 
of  Michael  Angelo.  Botticelli  is  probably,  so 
Mr.  Berenson  thinks,  the  most  marvellous 
draughtsman  thus  far  produced  by  European 
art  (we  can  still  go  to  old  China  and  Japan  for 
his  masters),  and  who  shall  say  him  nay  ?  Rus- 
kin,  on  the  strength  of  one  picture,  averred  that 
Tintoretto  was  the  greatest  of  painters.  For 
William  Blake,  England's  visionary  painter,  Ru- 
222 


MASTERS  OF  HALLUCINATION 

bens  was  an  emissary  from  Satan  let  loose  on 
this  sinful  globe  to  destroy  art.  And  Leonardo 
da  Vinci  —  what  of  that  incomparable  genius? 

After  Haarlem  and  Frans  Hals  you  may  real 
ise  that  Manet  and  Sargent  had  predecessors; 
after  a  visit  to  The  Hague  the  View  of  Delft 
may  teach  you  that  Vermeer  was  an  Impres 
sionist  long  before  the  French  Impressionists; 
also  that  he  painted  clear  light  as  it  never  be 
fore  was  painted,  nor  since.  As  for  Rembrandt, 
the  last  word  will  never  be  said.  He  is  the  eter 
nal  Sphinx  of  art,  whether  as  portraitist,  land 
scape  painter,  etcher,  or  revealer  of  the  night 
side  of  life,  of  its  bestiality,  madness,  cruelty, 
and  terrific  visions.  But  Velasquez  and  Ver 
meer  are  more  sane. 

Anything  I  may  write  of  Kubin,  Munch,  and 
Gauguin  should  be  read  in  the  light  of  my  ar 
tistic  credo.  These  three  names  do  not  swim 
in  main  currents,  rather  are  they  to  be  found 
in  some  morbid  morass  at  the  equivocal  twi 
light  hour,  not  the  hour  exquisite,  but  that  in 
determinate  moment  when  the  imagination  re 
coils  upon  itself  and  creates  shadows  that  flit, 
or,  more  depressing,  that  sit;  the  mood  of  ex 
asperated  melancholy  when  all  action  seems  fu 
tile,  and  life  a  via  crucis.  Nor  is  this  mood 
the  exclusive  possession  of  perverse  poets;  it  is 
an  authentic  one,  and  your  greengrocer  around 
the  corner  may  suffer  from  its  presence;  but  he 
calls  it  the  blues  and  resorts  to  alcohol,  while 
the  artist,  ever  conscious  of  the  "values"  of 
223 


KUBIN,  MUNCH,  AND   GAUGUIN: 

such  a  psychic  state  of  soul,  resorts  to  ink  or 
colour  or  tone  (not  always  despising  wine). 

This  Alfred  Kubin  has  done;  with  his  etching- 
needle  he  has  aroused  images  from  the  plate 
that  alternately  shock  and  exalt;  occasionally 
he  opens  the  valves  of  laughter  for  he  can  be 
both  witty  and  humorous.  His  Slavic  blood 
keeps  off  the  encroaching  danger  of  himself  tak 
ing  his  own  work  too  seriously.  I  wish  his  Ger 
man  contemporaries  boasted  such  gifts  of  irony. 
Kubin  is  a  Bohemian,  born  in  1877,  the  son  °f 
an  Austrian  Army  officer.  His  boyhood  was 
given  over  to  caprice,  and  he  appears  to  have 
passed  through  the  various  stages  familiar  in 
the  career  of  romantic  pathological  tempera 
ments.  Disillusionment  succeeded  disillusion 
ment;  he  even  contemplated  Werther's  end. 

He  found  himself  in  Munich  at  the  begin 
ning  of  this  century  with  a  slender  baggage  of 
ideals,  much  scorn  of  life,  and  a  determination  to 
express  his  tortured  and  complicated  personal 
ity  in  art.  No  matter  what  comical  old  women 
professors  (in  trousers)  tell  you  of  "objective 
art"  and  the  superior  advantage  of  drawing 
from  plaster  casts,  that  is  the  ultimate  aim  of 
an  artist  (naturally  I  don't  refer  to  fashionable 
face  painters,  who  make  a  lucrative  trade  of 
their  slippery  paint).  Nevertheless,  a  more 
rigid  discipline  might  have  smoothed  the  way 
for  Kubin,  who  has  not  yet  mastered  the  tools 
of  his  art.  He  has  always  practised  his  scales 
in  public. 

224 


MASTERS  OF  HALLUCINATION 

A  man's  reading  proclaims  the  man.  Kubin's 
favourite  authors  for  years  were  Schopenhauer 
and  Mainlander,  the  latter  a  disciple  of  the 
mighty  Arthur  and  one  who  put  into  practice 
a  tenet  of  his  master,  for  he  attained  Nirvana 
by  his  own  hand. 

Now,  a  little  Schopenhauer  is  an  excellent 
thing  to  still  restless,  egotistic  spirits,  to  con 
vince  them  of  the  essential  emptiness  of  life's 
coveted  glories;  but  a  surfeit  of  Schopenhauer 
is  like  a  surfeit  of  lobster  —  mental  indigestion 
follows  and  the  victim  blames  the  lobster  (i.  e., 
life)  instead  of  his  own  inordinate  appetite. 
Throughout  Kubin's  work  I  detect  traces  of 
spleen,  hatred  of  life,  delight  in  hideous  cruelty, 
a  predisposition  to  obscurity  and  a  too-exclu 
sive  preoccupation  with  sex;  indeed,  sex  looms 
largest  in  the  consciousness  of  the  new  art. 

To  burlesque  the  human  figure,  to  make  of  it 
a  vile  arabesque,  a  shameful  sight,  is  the  beset 
ting  temptation  of  the  younger  generation. 
Naturally,  it  is  good  to  get  away  from  the  sac 
charine  and  the  rococo,  but  vulgarity  is  always 
vulgarity  and  true  art  is  never  vulgar.  How 
ever,  Kubin  has  plenty  of  precedents.  A  ramble 
through  any  picture-gallery  on  the  Continent 
will  prove  that  human  nature  was  the  same 
five  hundred  years  ago  as  it  was  in  the  Stone 
Age,  as  it  is  to-day,  as  it  always  will  be.  Some 
of  Rembrandt's  etched  plates  are  unmention 
able,  and  Goya  even  went  to  further  lengths. 

Now,  Kubin  is  a  lineal  descendant  of  this 
225 


KUBIN,  MUNCH,  AND   GAUGUIN: 

Spaniard,  minus  his  genius,  for  our  young  man  is 
not  a  genius,  despite  his  cleverness.  He  bur 
lesques  the  themes  of  Goya  at  times,  and  in  him 
there  is  more  than  a  streak  of  the  cruelty  which 
causes  such  a  painful  impression  when  viewing 
the  Proverbs  or  the  Disasters  of  War. 

Kubin  has  chosen  to  seek  earlier  than  Goya 
for  his  artistic  nourishment.  He  has  studied  the 
designs  of  the  extraordinary  Pieter  Breughel, 
and  so  we  get  modern  versions  of  the  bizarre 
events  in  daily  life  so  dear  to  old  Pieter.  On 
one  plate  Kubin  depicts  a  hundred  happenings. 
Cruelty  and  broad  humour  are  present  and  not 
a  little  ingenuity  in  the  weaving  of  the  pattern. 
He,  too,  like  Breughel,  is  fond  of  trussing  up  a 
human  as  if  he  were  a  pig  and  then  sticking 
him  with  a  big  knife.  Every  form  of  torture 
from  boiling  oil  to  retelling  a  stale  anecdote  is 
shown.  The  elder  Teniers,  Hieronymus  Bosch, 
Breughel,  Goya,  and  among  later  artists,  Rops, 
Toulouse-Lautrec,  and  Aubrey  Beardsley,  are 
apparent  everywhere  in  Kubin's  work.  Neither 
is  Rembrandt  missing. 

Beardsley  is,  perhaps,  the  most  marked  in 
fluence,  and  not  for  the  best,  though  the  Bo 
hemian  designer  is  a  mere  tyro  when  compared 
to  the  Englishman,  the  most  extraordinary  ap 
parition  in  nineteenth-century  art. 

Kubin  has  illustrated  Poe  —  notably  Berenice; 

of  course  the  morbid  grimace  of  that  tale  would 

attract  him  —  Gerard  de  NervaFs  Aurelia,  Mar- 

chen  by  W.  Hauff,  and  his  own  volume  of  short 

226 


MASTERS  OF  HALLUCINATION 

stories  entitled,  Die  andere  Seite,  written  in  the 
fantastic  Poe  key  and  with  literary  skill.  The 
young  artist  is  happy  in  the  use  of  aquatint,  and 
to  judge  from  his  colour  combinations  one  might 
call  him  a  rich  colourist.  Singularly  enough,  in 
his  woodcuts  he  strangely  resembles  Cruikshank, 
and  I  suppose  he  never  saw  Cruikshank  in  his 
life,  though  if  he  has  read  Dickens  he  may  have. 
In  his  own  short  stories  there  are  many  illus 
trations  that  —  with  their  crisp  simplicity,  their 
humour  and  force  —  undoubtedly  recall  Cruik 
shank,  and  a  more  curious  combination  than  the 
English  delineator  of  broad  humour  and  high 
animal  spirits  and  the  Bohemian  with  his  pre 
dilection  for  the  interpretation  in  black  and 
white  of  lust,  murder,  ghosts,  and  nightmares 
would  be  hard  to  fmd.  Like  Rops,  Kubin  is  a 
devil-worshipper,  and  his  devils  are  as  pleasant 
appearing  as  some  of  the  Belgian's  female  Satans. 
I've  studied  the  Sansara  Blatter,  the  Weber 
Mappe,  and  Hermann  Esswein's  critical  edition 
of  various  plates,  beginning  with  one  executed 
when  Alfred  was  only  sixteen;  but  in  it  may  be 
found  his  principal  qualities.  Even  at  that  age 
he  was  influenced  by  Breughel.  Quaint  mon 
sters  that  never  peopled  our  prehistoric  planet 
are  being  bound  in  captivity  by  dwarfs  who 
fire  cannon,  stab  with  lances,  and  attack  ene 
mies  from  the  back  of  impossible  elephants. 
The  portrait  of  what  Kubin  calls  his  muse  looks 
like  a  flamingo  in  an  ermine  skirt  posing  pre 
vious  to  going  to  jail.  Then  we  see  the  shadow, 
227 


KUBIN,  MUNCH,  AND   GAUGUIN: 

a  monstrous  being  pursuing  through  a  lonely 
street  at  night  a  little  burgher  in  a  hurry  to 
reach  his  bed.  The  "shudder"  is  there.  Kubin 
has  read  Baudelaire.  His  Adventure  resembles 
a  warrior  in  No  Man's  Land  confronted  by  a 
huge  white  boa-constrictor  with  the  head  of  a 
blind  woman,  and  she  has  a  head  upon  which 
is  abundant  white  hair.  Puerile,  perhaps,  yet 
impressive. 

I  shall  skip  the  numerous  devil's  laboratories 
wherever  people  are  being  stewed  or  sawn 
asunder,  also  the  scenes  of  men  whipped  with 
leather  thongs  or  broken  on  the  rack.  One 
picture  is  called  The  Finger.  An  aged  man  in 
night-dress  cowers  against  the  wall  of  his  bed 
room  and  gazes  with  horror  at  an  enormous 
index-finger  which,  with  the  hand  to  which  it 
is  attached,  has  crawled  across  the  floor  as 
would  a  devilfish,  or  some  such  sort  of  mon 
ster.  The  ringer  threateningly  points  to  the 
unhappy  person.  Unquestionably  it  symbolises 
a  guilty  conscience.  Franz  von  Stuck  has  left 
his  impression  on  Kubin.  He  portrays  mounds 
of  corpses,  the  fruit  of  war,  which  revolt  the 
spectator,  both  on  account  of  the  folly  and 
crime  suggested  and  the  morbid  taste  of  the 
artist. 

Kubin's  Salome  is  the  last  word  in  the  inter 
pretation  of  that  mellifluous  damsel.  It  is  a 
frank  caricature  of  Beardsley,  partially  nude,  the 
peculiar  quality  of  the  plate  being  the  bestial 
expression  of  the  face.  No  viler  ugliness  is  con- 
228 


MASTERS  OF  HALLUCINATION 

ceivable.  And,  according  to  Flaubert,  who 
created  the  "modern"  Salome,  she  was  fasci 
nating  in  her  beauty.  I  fancy  foul  is  fair  now 
adays  in  art.  Never  before  in  its  history  has 
there  been  paid  such  a  tribute  to  sheer  ugliness. 
Never  before  has  its  house  been  so  peopled 
by  the  seven  devils  mentioned  in  the  Good 
Book. 

In  the  domain  of  fantasy  Kubin  is  effective. 
A  lonely  habitation  set  in  nocturnal  gloom  with 
a  horde  of  rats  deserting  it,  is  atmospheric;  two 
groups  of  men  quarrelling  in  sinister  alleys, 
monks  of  the  Inquisition  extinguishing  torches 
in  a  moonlit  corridor,  or  a  white  nightmare  nag 
wildly  galloping  in  a  circular  apartment;  these 
betray  fancy,  excited  perhaps  by  drugs.  When 
in  1900  or  thereabouts  the  "decadence"  move 
ment  swept  artistic  Germany,  the  younger  men 
imitated  Poe  and  Baudelaire,  and  consumed 
opium  with  the  hope  that  they  might  see  and 
record  visions.  But  a  commonplace  brain  under 
the  influence  of  opium  or  hasheesh  has  common 
place  dreams.  To  few  is  accorded  by  nature 
(or  by  his  satanic  majesty)  the  dangerous  priv 
ilege  of  discerning  la-bas,  those  visions  de 
scribed  by  De  Quincey,  Poe,  or  De  Nerval.  Al 
fred  Kubin  has  doubtless  experienced  the  rap 
ture  of  the  initiate.  There  is  a  certain  plate  in 
which  a  figure  rushes  down  the  secret  narrow 
pathway  zigzagging  from  the  still  stars  to  the 
bottommost  pit  of  hell,  the  head  crowned  as  if 
by  a  flaming  ecstasy,  the  arms  extended  in  hys- 
229 


KUBIN,  MUNCH,  AND   GAUGUIN: 

teria,  the  feet  of  abnormal  size.  A  thrilling  de 
sign  with  Blake-like  hints  —  for  Blake  was  mas 
ter  of  the  "flaming  door"  and  the  ecstasy  that 
consumes. 

A  design  that  attracts  is  a  flight  of  steps 
feebly  lighted  by  a  solitary  light,  hemmed  in 
by  ancient  walls;  on  the  last  step  lurks  an 
anonymous  person.  A  fine  bit  of  old-fashioned 
romance  is  conjured  up;  also  memories  of  Pi- 
ranesi. 

The  drowning  woman  is  indescribable,  yet  not 
without  a  note  of  pathos.  Buddha  is  one  of  the 
artist's  highest  flights.  The  Oriental  mysti 
cism,  the  Kef,  as  ecstasy  is  called  in  the  East, 
are  admirably  expressed.  His  studies  of  deep- 
sea  life  border  on  the  remarkable.  I  have  sel 
dom  encountered  such  solicitude  for  exact  draw 
ing,  such  appreciation  of  the  beauties  of  form 
and  surface  colouring,  as  these  pictures  of  shells, 
sea  flora,  and  exotic  pearls.  The  Cardinal  series 
must  not  be  forgotten,  those  not  easily  forgotten 
portraits  of  a  venerable  ecclesiastic. 

It  is  difficult  to  sum  up  in  a  brief  article  all 
the  characteristics  of  this  versatile  Bohemian, 
as  it  is  difficult  to  find  a  picture  that  will  give 
a  general  idea  of  his  talent.  I  select  the  Nero, 
not  because  it  exhibits  any  technical  prowess 
(on  the  contrary,  the  arms  are  of  wood),  but 
because  it  may  reveal  a  tithe  of  the  artist's 
fancy.  Nero  has  reached  the  end  of  a  world 
that  he  has  depopulated;  there  remains  the  last 
ship-load  of  mankind  which  he  is  about  to  de- 
230 


MASTERS  OF  HALLUCINATION 

stroy  at  one  swoop.  The  design  is  large  in  qual 
ity,  the  idea  altogether  in  consonance  with  the 
early  emotional  attitude  of  Kubin  toward  life. 

II 

Edvard  Munch,  the  Norwegian,  is  a  much 
bigger  man  and  artist.  The  feminine  note,  de 
spite  his  sensibility,  is  missing.  He  has  control 
of  his  technical  forces  and  he  never  indulged  in 
such  nervous  excesses  as  Kubin.  Besides,  he  is 
sincere,  while  the  other  is  usually  cynical.  He 
deals  with  the  same  old  counters,  love  and 
death,  debauchery  and  consequent  corruption. 
He  is  an  exponent  of  feverish  visions,  yet  you 
never  feel  that  he  is  borne  down  by  his  contact 
with  dwellers  on  the  threshold.  A  border-lander, 
as  is  Maurice  Maeterlinck,  Munch  has  a  more 
precise  vision;  in  a  word  he  is  a  mystic,  and  a 
true  mystic  always  sees  dreams  as  sharp  reali 
ties. 

It  was  Mr.  Saintsbury  who  first  called  atten 
tion  to  the  clear  flame  of  Flaubert's  visions  as 
exemplified  by  his  Temptation  of  St.  Anthony. 
So  Munch,  who  pins  to  paper  with  almost  geo 
metrical  accuracy  his  personal  adventures  in  the 
misty  mid-region  of  Weir.  And  a  masculine 
soul  is  his.  I  can  still  recall  my  impressions  on 
seeing  one  of  his  early  lithographs  entitled, 
Geschrei.  As  far  as  America  is  concerned,  Ed 
vard  Munch  was  discovered  by  Vance  Thomp 
son,  who  wrote  an  appreciation  of  the  Norwe- 
231 


KUBIN,  MUNCH,  AND   GAUGUIN: 

gian  painter,  then  a  resident  of  Berlin,  in  the 
pages  of  M'lle  New  York  (since  gathered  to 
her  forefathers).  The  "cry"  of  the  picture  is 
supposed  to  be  the  " infinite  cry  of  nature"  as 
felt  by  an  odd-looking  individual  who  stands  on  a 
long  bridge  traversing  an  estuary  in  some  Nor 
wegian  harbour.  The  sky  is  barred  by  flaming 
clouds,  two  enigmatic  men  move  in  the  middle 
distance.  To-day  the  human  with  the  distorted 
skull  who  holds  hands  to  his  ears  and  with  star 
ing  eyes  opens  wide  a  foolish  mouth  looks  more 
like  a  man  overtaken  by  seasickness  than  a  poet 
mastered  by  cosmic  emotion. 

In  1901  I  visited  Munich  and  at  the  Secession 
exhibition  at  the  Glass  Palace  I  saw  a  room  full 
of  Munches.  It  was  nicknamed  the  Chamber  of 
Horrors,  and  the  laughter  and  exclamations  of 
disgust  indulged  in  by  visitors  recalled  the  his 
tory  of  Manet's  Dejeuner  sur  1'herbe  and  the 
treatment  accorded  it  by  Parisians  (an  incident 
utilised  by  Zola  in  L'CEuvre).  But  nowadays, 
in  company  with  the  Neo-Impressionists,  the 
Lampost  Impressionists,  Cubists,  and  Futurists, 
Munch  might  seem  tame,  conventional;  never 
theless  he  was  years  ahead  of  the  new  crowd  in 
painting  big  blocks  of  colour,  juxtaposed,  not  as 
the  early  Impressionists  juxtaposed  their  strokes 
of  complementary  colour  to  gam  synthesis  by 
dissociation  of  tonalities,  but  by  obvious  dis 
cords  thus  achieve  a  brutal  optical  impression. 

His  landscapes  were  those  of  a  visionary  in  an 
Arcadia  where  the  ugly  is  elevated  to  the  tragic. 
232 


MASTERS  OF  HALLUCINATION 

Tragic,  too,  were  his  representations  of  his  fel 
low  men.  Such  every-day  incidents  as  a  funeral 
became  transfigured  in  the  sardonic  humour  of 
this  pessimist.  No  one  had  such  a  quick  eye 
in  detecting  the  mean  souls  of  interested  mourn 
ers  at  the  interment  of  a  relative.  I  possess  an 
original  signed  lithograph  called,  The  Curious 
Ones,  which  shows  a  procession  returning  afoot 
from  a  funeral.  Daumier,  himself,  could  not 
beat  the  variety  of  expressions  shown  in  this 
print.  The  silk  hat  (and  Goya  was  the  first 
among  modern  artists  to  prove  its  value  as  a 
motive)  plays  a  role  in  the  Munch  plates.  His 
death-room  scenes  are  unapproachable  in  seizing 
the  fleeting  atmosphere  of  the  last  hour.  The 
fear  of  death,  the  very  fear  of  fear,  Maeterlinck 
has  created  by  a  species  of  creeping  dialogue. 
(The  Intruder  is  an  example),  but  Edvard 
Munch  working  in  an  art  of  two  dimensions 
where  impressions  must  be  simultaneous,  is  more 
dynamic.  The  shrill  dissonance  in  his  work  is 
instantly  reflected  in  the  brain  of  the  speaker. 
In  his  best  work  —  not  his  skeletons  dancing 
with  plump  girls,  or  the  youthful  macabre  ex 
travagances  after  the  manner  of  Rops,  Rethel, 
De  Groux,  or  James  Ensor  —  he  does  invoke  a 
genuine  thrill. 

Psychologic,  in  the  true  sense  of  that  much- 
abused  word,  are  his  portraits;  indeed,  I  am 
not  sure  that  his  portraits  will  play  second  fid 
dle  to  his  purely  imaginative  work  in  the  future. 
There  is  the  Strindberg,  certainly  the  most  au- 

233 


KUBIN,  MUNCH,  AND   GAUGUIN: 

thoritative  presentment  of  that  strange,  un 
happy  soul.  The  portraits  of  Hans  Jager,  the 
poet  (in  oil),  the  etched  head  of  Doctor  A.,  the 
etched  head  of  Sigbjorn  Obstfelder,  poet  who 
died  young,  as  well  as  the  self-portraits  and  the 
splendidly  constructed  figure  and  eloquent  ex 
pression  in  the  portrait  of  a  woman,  an  oil- 
painting  now  in  the  National  Gallery,  Chris- 
tiania,  these  and  many  others  serve  as  testimony 
to  a  sympathetic  divination  of  character.  His 
etched  surfaces  are  never  as  silvery  as  those  of 
Anders  Zorn,  who  is  a  virtuoso  in  the  manage 
ment  of  the  needle.  Not  that  Munch  disdains 
good  craftsmanship,  but  he  is  obsessed  by  char 
acter;  this  is  the  key-note  of  his  art.  How 
finely  he  expresses  envy,  jealousy,  hatred,  cov- 
etousness,  and  the  vampire  that  sometimes  lurks 
in  the  soul  of  woman.  An  etching,  Hypocrisy, 
with  its  faint  leer  on  the  lips  of  a  woman,  is  a 
little  masterpiece.  His  sick  people  are  pitiful, 
that  is,  when  they  are  not  grotesque;  the  entire 
tragedy  of  blasted  childhood  is  in  his  portrait 
of  The  Sick  Child. 

As  a  rule  he  seldom  condescends  to  sound  the 
note  of  sentimentality.  He  is  an  illustrator 
born,  and  as  such  does  not  take  sides,  letting 
his  parable  open  to  those  who  can  read.  And 
his  parable  is  always  legible.  He  distorts,  de 
forms,  and  with  his  strong,  fluid  line  modulates 
his  material  as  he  wills,  but  he  never  propounds 
puzzles  hi  form,  as  do  the  rest  of  the  experi 
mentalists.  The  human  shape  does  not  become 

234 


MASTERS  OF  HALLUCINATION 

either  a  stovepipe  or  an  orchid  in  his  hands. 
His  young  mothers  are  sometimes  dithyrambic 
(as  in  Madonna)  or  else  despairing  outcasts. 
One  plate  of  his  which  always  affects  me  is  his 
Dead  Mother,  with  the  little  daughter  at  the 
bedside,  the  cry  of  agony  arrested  on  her  lips, 
the  death  chamber  exhaling  poverty  and  sorrow. 
By  preference  Munch  selects  his  themes  among 
the  poor  and  the  middle  class.  He  can  paint 
an  empty  room  traversed  by  a  gleam  of  moon 
light  and  set  one  to  thinking  a  half  day  on 
such  an  apparently  barren  theme.  He  may 
suggest  the  erotic,  but  never  the  lascivious.  A 
thinker  doubled  by  an  artist  he  is  the  one  man 
north  who  recalls  the  harsh  but  pregnant  truths 
of  Henrik  Ibsen. 


Ill 

Every  decade,  or  thereabouts,  a  revolution 
occurs  in  the  multicoloured  world  of  the  Seven 
Arts;  in  Paris,  at  least  a  half  dozen  times  in  the 
year,  a  new  school  is  formed  on  the  left  bank  of 
the  Seine  or  under  some  tent  in  the  provinces. 
Without  variety  —  as  well  as  vision  —  the  peo 
ple  perish.  Hence  the  invention  known  as  a 
"new  art,"  which  always  can  be  traced  back  to 
a  half-forgotten  one.  After  the  hard-won  vic 
tories  of  Impressionism  there  was  bound  to  en 
sue  a  reaction.  The  symbolists  crowded  out  the 
realists  in  literature  and  the  Neo-Impressionists 
felt  the  call  of  Form  as  opposed  to  Colour. 

235 


KUBIN,  MUNCH,  AND   GAUGUIN: 

Well,  we  are  getting  form  with  a  vengeance,  and 
seldom  has  colour  been  so  flouted  in  favour  of 
cubes,  cylinders,  and  wooden  studio  models  and 
muddy  paste. 

Paul  Gauguin,  before  he  went  to  the  equator, 
saw  the  impending  change.  He  was  weary  of  a 
Paris  where  everything  had  been  painted,  de 
scribed,  modelled,  so  he  sailed  for  Tahiti,  land 
ing  at  Papeete.  Even  there  he  found  the  taint 
of  European  ideas,  and  after  the  funeral  of  King 
Pomare  and  an  interlude  of  flirtation  with  an 
absinthe-drinking  native  princess,  niece  of  the 
departed  royalty  (he  made  a  masterly  portrait 
of  her),  he  fled  to  the  interior  and  told  his  ex 
periences  in  Noa  Noa,  The  Land  of  Lovely 
Scents.  This  little  book,  illustrated  with  ap 
propriate  sketches  by  the  author-painter,  is  a 
highly  important  contribution  to  the  scanty  lit 
erature  dealing  with  Gauguin.  I've  read  Charles 
Morice  and  Emil  Bernard,  but  beyond  telling  us 
details  about  the  Pont-Aven  School  and  the  art 
and  madness  of  gifted  Vincent  Van  Gogh,  both 
are  reticent  about  Gauguin's  pilgrimage  to  the 
South  Seas.  We  knew  why  he  went  there,  now 
we  know  what  he  did  while  he  was  there.  The 
conclusion  of  the  book  is  illuminating.  "I  re 
turned  to  Paris  two  years  older  than  when  I 
left,  but  feeling  twenty  years  younger." 

The  cause  of  this  rejuvenation  was  a  com 
plete  change  in  his  habits.  With  an  extraordi 
nary  frankness,  not  at  all  in  the  perfumed  man 
ner  of  that  eternal  philanderer,  Pierre  Loti,  this 
236 


MASTERS  OF  HALLUCINATION 

one-time  sailor  before  the  mast,  this  explosive, 
dissipated,  hard-living  Paul  Gauguin  became 
as  a  child,  simulating  as  well  as  could  an  arti 
ficial  civilised  Parisian  with  sick  nerves  the 
childlike  attitude  toward  nature  that  he  ob 
served  in  his  companions,  the  gentle  Tahitians. 
He  married  a  Maori,  a  trial  marriage,  oblivious 
of  the  fact  that  he  had  left  behind  him  in  France 
a  wife  and  children,  and,  clothed  in  the  native 
girdle,  he  roamed  the  island  naked,  unashamed, 
free,  happy.  With  the  burden  of  European  cus 
toms  from  his  shoulders,  his  almost  moribund 
interest  in  his  art  revived.  Gauguin  there  ex 
perienced  visions,  was  haunted  by  exotic  spirits. 
One  picture  is  the  black  goddess  of  evil,  whom 
he  has  painted  as  she  lies  on  a  couch  with  a 
white  background,  a  colour  inversion  of  Manet's 
Olympe.  With  the  cosmology  of  the  islanders 
the  Frenchman  was  familiar. 

He  has,  in  addition  to  portraying  the  natives, 
made  an  agreeable  exposition  of  their  ways  and 
days,  and  their  nai've  blending  of  Christian  and 
Maori  beliefs.  His  description  of  the  festival 
called  Areosis  is  startling.  Magical  practices, 
with  their  attendant  cruelties  and  voluptuous 
ness,  still  prevail  in  Tahiti,  though  only  at  cer 
tain  intervals.  Very  superstitious,  the  natives 
see  demons  and  fairies  in  every  bush. 

The  flowerlike  beauty  of  the  brown  women 
comes  in  for  much  praise,  though  to  be  truth 
ful,  the  ladies  on  his  canvases  seem  far  from 
beautiful  to  prejudiced  Occidental  eyes.  This 

237 


KUBIN,  MUNCH,  AND   GAUGUIN: 

Noa  Noa  is  a  refreshing  contribution  to  the 
psychology  of  a  painter  who,  in  broad  daylight 
dreamed  fantastic  visions,  a  painter  to  whom 
the  world  was  but  a  painted  vision,  as  the  music 
of  Richard  Wagner  is  painted  music  overheard 
in  another  world. 

"A  painter  is  either  a  revolutionist  or  a  pla 
giarist,"  said  Paul  Gauguin.  But  the  tricksy 
god  of  irony  has  decreed  that,  if  he  lasts  long 
enough,  every  anarch  will  end  as  a  conservative, 
upon  which  consoling  epigram  let  us  pause. 

If  I  were  to  write  a  coda  to  the  foregoing, 
loosely  heaped  notes,  I  might  add  that  beauty 
and  ugliness,  sickness  and  health,  are  only  rela 
tive  terms.  The  truth  is  the  normal  never  hap 
pens  in  art  or  life,  so  whenever  you  hear  a  painter 
or  professor  of  aesthetics  preaching  the  "gospel 
of  health  in  art"  you  will  know  that  both  are 
preaching  pro  domo.  The  kingdom  of  art  con 
tains  many  mansions,  and  in  even  the  greatest 
art  there  may  be  found  the  morbid,  the  feverish, 
the  sick,  or  the  mad.  Such  a  world-genius  as 
Albrecht  Diirer  had  his  moment  of  "  Melencolia," 
and  what  can't  you  detect  in  Da  Vinci  or  Mi 
chael  Angelo  if  you  are  overcurious? 

"Beauty,"  like  that  other  deadly  phrase, 
"beautiful  drawing,"  is  ever  the  shibboleth  of 
the  mediocre,  of  imitators,  in  a  word,  of  the 
academy.  These  men  of  narrow  vision  pin  their 
faith  to  Ingres  (which  is  laudable  enough),  but 
groan  if  the  "mighty  line"  of  Degas  is  men 
tioned;  yet  Degas,  a  pupil  of  Ingres,  has  con- 
238 


MASTERS  OF  HALLUCINATION 

tinued  his  master's  tradition  in  the  only  way 
tradition  should  be  continued,  i.  e.,  by  further 
development  and  by  adding  an  individual  note. 
Therefore,  when  I  register  my  overwhelming 
admiration  for  Velasquez,  Vermeer,  and  Rem 
brandt  I  do  not  bind  myself  to  close  my  eyes  to 
originality,  personal  charm,  or  character  in  the 
newer  men.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  schools 
of  art;  there  are  only  artists. 


239 


XIII 

THE  CULT  OF  THE  NUANCE 
LAFCADIO  HEARN 

LAFCADIO  HEARN,  shy,  complex,  sensuous, 
has  in  Elizabeth  Bisland  a  sympathetic  biog 
rapher.  In  her  two  volumes,  the  major  portion 
is  devoted  to  the  letters  of  this  exotic  and  ex 
traordinary  writer;  he  was  both,  without  being 
either  a  great  man  or  a  great  artist.  The  domi 
nant  impression  made  by  his  personality,  so 
much  and  often  so  unhappily  discussed,  is  itself 
impressionistic.  Curiously  enough,  as  he  viewed 
the  world,  so  has  he  been  judged  by  the  world. 
His  life,  fragmentary,  episodic,  restless,  doubtless 
the  result  of  physical  and  psychical  limitations, 
is  admirably  reflected  in  his  writings  with  their 
staccato  phrasing,  overcoloured  style,  their  flight 
from  anything  approaching  reality,  their  uneasy 
apprehension  of  sex,  and  their  flittings  among  the 
folk-lore  of  a  half  dozen  extinct  civilisations.  His 
defective  eyesight  was  largely  the  cause  of  his 
attitude  toward  life  and  art  —  for  with  our  eyes 
we  create  our  world  —  and  his  intense  sufferings 
and  consequent  pessimism  must  be  set  down  to 
the  inevitable  tragedy  of  a  soul  that  greatly  as 
pired,  but  a  soul  that  had  the  interior  vision 
though  not  the  instrument  with  which  to  inter- 
240 


LAFCADIO  HEARN 

pret  it.    Lafcadio  Hearn  was  a  poetic  tempera 
ment,  a  stylist,  but  an  incomplete  artist. 

His  biographer,  Miss  Bisland,  speaks  of  him 
as  a  "stylist."  Unfortunately  this  is  not  far 
from  the  truth;  he  was  a  "stylist,"  though  not 
always  with  an  individual  style.  The  real  Hearn 
had  superimposed  upon  him  the  debris  of  many 
writers,  usually  Frenchmen.  He  began  his  lit 
erary  life  as  a  worshipper  and  translator  of  The- 
ophile  Gautier  and  died  in  the  faith  that  Pierre 
Loti  had  said  the  last  word  of  modern  prose. 
Gautier  attracted  him  by  his  sumptuousness  of 
epithet,  the  perfectly  realised  material  splen 
dours  of  gold,  of  marble,  of  colour.  To  the 
neurasthenic  Hearn,  his  brain  big  with  glorious 
dreams,  the  Parisian  pagan  must  have  seemed 
godlike  in  his  half-smiling,  half-contemptuous 
mastery  of  language,  a  mastery  in  its  ease  not 
outrivalled  even  by  Flaubert.  Gautier  was  a 
gigantic  reflector  of  the  visible  world,  but  with 
out  genuine  sympathy  for  humanity,  and  he 
boasted  that  his  periods,  like  cats,  always  fell 
on  their  feet,  no  matter  how  high  or  carelessly 
he  tossed  them.  And  then  he  was  Greek  in  his 
temperament,  Greek  grafted  upon  a  Parisian 
who  loved  form  and  hue  above  all  else,  and  this 
appealed  to  Hearn,  whose  mother  was  Greek, 
whose  tastes  were  exotic.  It  was  only  after  he 
had  passed  the  half-century  mark  and  when  he 
was  the  father  of  three  sons  that  some  appre 
hension  of  the  gravity  of  Occidental  ethical 
teaching  was  realised  by  him. 
241 


THE  CULT  OF  THE  NUANCE: 

When  M.  Loti-Viaud,  that  most  exquisite  of 
French  prose  artists  and  sentimental  sensualists, 
made  his  appearance,  Lafcadio  was  ravished  into 
the  seventh  heaven.  Here  was  what  he  had 
sought  to  do,  what  he  never  would  do  —  the 
perfection  of  impressionism,  created  by  an  ac 
cumulation  of  delicate  details,  unerringly  pre 
sented,  with  the  intention  of  attacking  the  visual 
(literary)  sense,  not  the  ear.  You  can't  read  a 
page  of  Loti  aloud;  hearing  is  never  the  filial 
court  of  appeal  for  him.  Nor  is  the  ear  regarded 
in  Hearn's  prose.  He  is  not  "auditive";  like 
Loti  and  the  Goncourts,  he  writes  for  the  eye. 
Fr.  Paulhan  calls  writers  of  this  type  rich  in 
the  predominance  des  sensations  visuelles.  Dis 
connected  by  his  constant  abuse  of  the  dash  — 
he  must  have  studied  Poe  not  too  wisely  —  in 
finitesimal  strokes  of  colour  supplying  the  place 
of  a  large-moulded  syntax,  this  prose  has  not 
unity,  precision,  speed,  euphony.  Its  rhythms 
are  choppy,  the  dabs  of  paint,  the  shadings 
within  shadings,  the  return  upon  itself  of  the 
theme,  the  reticent,  inverted  sentences,  the  ab 
sence  of  architectonic  and  the  fatal  lack  of  va 
riety,  surprise,  or  grandeur  in  the  harmonic  sense, 
these  disbar  the  prose  of  Lafcadio  Hearn  from 
the  exalted  position  claimed  for  it  by  his  ad 
mirers 

Yet  it  is  a  delicate  prose;  the  haunted  twi 
light  of  the  soul  has  found  its  notations  in  his 
work.  With  Amiel  he  could  say  of  a  land 
scape  that  it  was  a  state  of  soul.  His  very 
242 


LAFCADIO  HEARN 

defects  became  his  strength.  With  normal  eye 
sight  we  should  not  have  had  the  man  of  ghostly 
reveries,  the  patient,  charming  etcher  on  a  min 
iature  block  of  evanescent  prose,  the  forger  of 
tiny  chords,  modulating  into  Chopin-like  mist. 
His  mania  for  the  word  caused  him  to  neglect 
the  sentence;  his  devotion  to  the  sentence  closed 
for  him  any  comprehensive  handling  of  the  para 
graph;  he  seldom  wrote  a  perfect  page;  never 
an  entire  chapter  or  book.  At  his  best  he 
equals  Loti  in  his  evocation  of  the  mystery  that 
encompasses  us,  a  mystery  that  has  been  sounded 
in  music,  seldom  in  language.  His  cast  of  mind 
was  essentially  romantic.  Hearn  does  not  men 
tion  the  name  of  Goncourt  in  his  letters,  and 
yet  it  is  a  certain  side  of  the  brothers,  the  im 
pressionistic  side,  that  his  writings  resemble. 
But  he  had  not  their  artistry.  Nor  could  he, 
like  Maupassant,  summon  tangible  spirits  from 
the  vasty  deep,  as  did  the  Norman  master  in 
Le  Horla.  When  Rodin  was  told  by  Arthur 
Symons  that  William  Blake  saw  visions,  the 
sculptor,  after  looking  at  the  drawings,  replied: 
"Yes,  he  saw  them  once;  he  should  have  seen 
them  three  or  four  times. ' '  Hearn  seldom  pinned 
down  to  the  paper  his  dreams,  though  he  had  a 
gift  of  suggestion,  of  spiritual  overtones,  in  a 
key  of  transcendentalism,  that,  in  certain  pages, 
far  outshines  Loti  or  Maupassant.  Disciple  of 
Herbert  Spencer  —  he  was  forced  because  of  his 
feminine  fluidity  to  lean  on  a  strong,  positive 
brain  —  hater  of  social  conventions,  despiser  of 

243 


THE  CULT  OF  THE  NUANCE: 

Christianity,  a  proselyte  to  a  dozen  creeds,  from 
the  black  magic  of  Voodooism  to  Japanese  Shin- 
toism,  he  never  quite  rid  himself  of  the  spiritual 
deposits  inherited  from  his  Christian  ancestry. 
This  strain,  this  contradiction,  to  be  found  in 
his  later  letters,  explains  much  of  his  psy 
chology,  all  of  his  art.  A  man  after  nearly  two 
thousand  years  of  Christianity  may  say  to  him 
self:  "Lo!  I  am  a  pagan."  But  all  the  horses 
from  Dan  to  Beersheba  cannot  drag  him  back 
to  paganism,  cannot  make  him  resist  the  "pull" 
of  his  hereditary  faith.  The  very  quality  Hearn 
most  deplored  in  himself  gives  his  work  an  ex 
otic  savour;  he  is  a  Christian  of  Greek  and  Ro 
man  Catholic  training,  a  half  Greek,  half  Celt, 
whole  gipsy,  masquerading  as  an  Oriental.  The 
mask  is  an  agreeable  one,  the  voice  of  the  speaker 
sweet,  almost  enticing,  but  one  more  mask  it  is, 
and  therefore  not  the  real  Hearn.  He  was  Goth, 
not  Greek;  he  suffered  from  the  mystic  fear  of 
the  Goth,  while  he  yearned  for  the  great  day 
flame  of  the  classics.  Even  his  Japonisme  was 
skin-deep. 

Miss  Bisland  relates  the  uneventful  career  of 
Hearn  in  an  unaffected  manner.  He  was  loved 
by  his  friends,  while  he  often  ran  away  from 
them.  Solitary,  eccentric,  Hearn  was  an  un 
happy  man.  He  was  born  June  27,  1850,  on 
one  of  the  Ionian  Isles,  Santa  Maura,  called  in 
modern  Greek,  Leokus,  or  Lafcada,  the  Sappho 
Leucadia,  promontory  and  all.  His  father  was 
Charles  Bush  Hearn,  of  an  old  Dorsetshire  fam- 
244 


LAFCADIO  HEARN 

ily  —  Hearn,  however,  is  a  Romany  name  — 
and  an  Irishman.  His  mother  was  Rosa  Ceri- 
gote,  a  Greek,  whose  brothers,  it  is  said,  stabbed 
their  sister's  suitor,  but  she,  Isolde-like,  nursed 
him,  and  he  married  her.  The  marriage  was 
not  a  happy  one.  Young  Lafcadio  drifted  to 
Ireland,  was  adopted  by  a  rich  aunt  of  Doctor 
Hearn's,  a  Mrs.  Brenane,  and  went  with  her  to 
Wales.  He  is  said  to  have  been  educated  in  the 
north  of  France  at  a  Jesuit  college.  He  learned 
the  language  there.  Later  he  was  at  Ushan, 
the  Roman  Catholic  college  of  Durham.  His 
life  long  he  hated  this  religion,  hated  it  in  a 
superstitious  fashion,  and  seemed  to  have  suf 
fered  from  a  sort  of  persecution  mania  —  he 
fancied  Jesuits  were  plotting  against  him.  At 
school  he  lost  the  sight  of  one  eye  through  an 
accident  while  at  play.  In  1869  Hearn  was 
five  feet  three  inches  tall,  weighed  one  hundred 
and  thirty -seven  pounds,  and  had  a  chest 
measurement  of  thirty-six  and  three-fourths 
inches.  Disappointed  of  an  expected  inheri 
tance  —  his  grandaunt  left  him  nothing  —  he 
went  to  London  with  his  head  full  of  dreams, 
but  his  pockets  were  empty.  In  1869  he  landed 
in  New  York,  penniless,  poor  in  health,  half 
blind,  friendless,  and  very  ambitious. 

In  this  biography  you  may  follow  him  through 
the  black  and  coiling  poverty,  a  mean  and  bit 
ter  life  compared  with  which  the  career  of  Rob 
ert  Louis  Stevenson  was  the  triumphal  proces 
sion  of  a  Prince  Charming  of  letters.  He  landed 

245 


THE  CULT  OF  THE  NUANCE: 

finally  in  Cincinnati,  where  he  secured  an  un 
important  position  on  The  Enquirer.  His  friends 
at  that  time  were  H.  E.  Krehbiel,  Joseph  Tuni- 
son,  and  H.  F.  Farney,  the  artist.  His  letters, 
printed  in  this  volume,  and  ranging  from  1877 
to  1889,  addressed  to  Mr.  Krehbiel,  are  the 
most  interesting  for  the  students  of  Hearn  the 
literary  aspirant.  He  envies  the  solid  architec 
ture  of  that  music-critic's  prose,  but  realises 
that  it  is  not  for  him  —  lack  of  structure  is  his 
chief  deficiency.  But  he  passionately  admired 
that  quality  in  others  wherein  he  felt  himself 
wanting.  He  was  generous  to  others,  not  to 
himself.  It  is  unfortunate  that  he  studied  the 
prose  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Mr.  Kreh 
biel  evidently  knew  of  his  tone-deafness.  Hearn 
wrote  him  that  he  could  listen  to  Patti  after  he 
had  read  Krehbiel.  This  proves  him  to  be  of 
the  "literary"  type  of  music  lover;  music  must 
first  be  a  picture  before  it  makes  a  tonal  image 
in  the  cortical  cells.  The  most  remarkable 
thing  in  the  Hearn  case  is  his  intensity  of  vision 
without  adequate  optical  organs.  With  infinite 
pains  he  pictured  life  microscopically.  He  was 
for  ever  excited,  his  brain  clamouring  for  food, 
starving  for  the  substance  denied  it  by  lack  of 
normal  eyesight.  Hearn  sickened  of  newspaper 
work,  he  loathed  it,  he  often  declared,  and  slipped 
away  to  New  Orleans.  There  he  found  much 
material  for  his  exotic  cravings.  He  accumu 
lated  an  expensive  and  curious  library,  for  his 
was  the  type  of  talent  that  must  derive  from 
246 


LAFCADIO  HEARN 

art,  not  life.  At  Martinique  we  find  him  hyp 
notised  by  the  scenery,  the  climate,  and  the 
colourful  life.  He  abhorred  the  cold,  he  always 
shivered  in  New  York,  and  this  tepid,  romantic 
island,  with  its  dreamy  days  and  starry  nights, 
filled  him  with  languid  joy.  But  he  soon  dis 
covered  that  the  making  of  literature  was  not 
possible  in  such  a  luxurious  atmosphere,  as  he 
did  later  in  Japan,  and  he  returned  to  the 
United  States.  In  1890  he  left  for  the  East, 
never  to  return.  He  died  at  Tokio,  September 
26,  1904. 

Hearn  had  an  amazing  acquaintance  with  the 
folk-lore  of  many  nations.  He  was  perpetually 
raving  over  the  Finnish,  the  Voodoo,  the  Hindu. 
If  he  had  gone  to  Paris  instead  of  to  Japan,  we 
should  have  missed  the  impressionism  of  his 
Japanese  tales,  yet  he  might  have  found  the 
artistic  solace  his  aching  heart  desired.  There 
his  style  would  have  been  better  grounded; 
there  he  would  have  found  solid  weapons  fash 
ioned  for  his  ethnical,  archaeological,  and  aesthet- 
ical  excursions.  Folk-lore  is  a  treacherous  by 
way  of  literature,  and  Hearn  always  worked  in 
it  with  old-fashioned  tools.  As  versatile  in 
range  as  were  his  researches,  the  results  are 
meagre,  for  he  was  not  a  trained  observer  nor 
thinker  in  any  domain.  So  is  it  that  in  his 
later  rovings  among  the  metaphysics  of  Spencer 
and  modern  thought  there  is  something  fever 
ishly  shallow.  His  judgments  of  English  writers 
were  amateurish.  He  called  Kipling  a  great 
247 


THE  CULT  OF  THE  NUANCE 

poet,  presumably  on  the  strength  of  his  exotic 
tang.  Sir  Edwin  Arnold  he  rated  above  Mat 
thew  Arnold  for  the  same  reason. 

In  Japan,  delicious,  malodorous  Japan,  we 
leave  him  to  the  reader,  who  will  find  in  these 
letters  to  Henry  Edward  Krehbiel,  Ball,  W.  D. 
O'Connor,  Gould,  Elizabeth  Bisland,  Page  M. 
Butler,  Basil  Hall  Chamberlain,  Ellwood  Hen- 
drick,  and  Mitchell  McDonald  the  most  enter 
taining,  self-revealing  literary  correspondence 
published  since  the  death  of  Robert  Louis  Steven 
son.  He  interpreted  the  soul  of  old  Japan  at 
the  critical  moment  when  a  new  Western  one  was 
being  assumed  like  a  formidable  carapace.  He 
also  warned  us  of  Japan,  the  new  Japan — though 
not  in  a  friendly  way;  he  would  have  been  glad 
to  see  Western  civilisation  submerged  by  the 
yellow  races. 

Shy,  complex,  sensuous,  Hearn  is  the  real 
Lafcadio  Hearn  in  these  letters.  Therein  we 
discover  the  tenderness,  the  passion,  the  capac 
ity  for  friendship,  the  genuine  humanity  ab 
sent  in  his  books.  His  life,  his  art,  were  sadly 
misfitted  with  masks  —  though  Nietzsche  says: 
"All  that  is  profound  loves  the  mask";  and  the 
symbolism  of  the  Orient  completed  the  disin 
tegration  of  his  baffling  personality. 


248 


XIV 

THE  MELANCHOLY  OF  MASTER 
PIECES 


POSSIBLY  it  is  a  purely  subjective  impression, 
but  I  seldom  face  a  masterpiece  in  art  without 
suffering  a  slight  melancholy,  and  this  feeling  is 
never  influenced  by  the  subject.  The  pastoral 
peace  that  hovers  like  a  golden  benison  about 
Giorgione's  Concert  at  the  Louvre,  the  slow, 
widowed  smile  of  the  Mona  Lisa,  the  cross- 
rhythms  of  Las  Lanzas,  most  magnificent  of 
battle-pieces,  in  the  Velasquez  Sala  at  the  Prado, 
even  the  processional  poplars  of  Hobbema  at 
the  National  Gallery,  or  the  clear  cool  daylight 
which  filters  through  the  window  of  the  Dresden 
Vermeer  —  these  and  others  do  not  always  give 
me  the  buoyant  sense  of  self-liberation  which 
great  art  should.  It  is  not  because  I  have  seen 
too  often  the  bride  Saskia  and  her  young  hus 
band  Rembrandt,  in  Dresden,  that  in  their 
presence  a  tinge  of  sadness  colours  my  thoughts. 
I  have  endeavoured  to  analyse  this  feeling. 
Why  melancholy?  Is  great  art  always  slightly 
morbid?  Is  it  because  of  their  isolation  in  the 
stone  jails  we  call  museums  ?  Or  that  their  im- 
249 


MELANCHOLY  OF  MASTERPIECES 

mortality  yields  inch  by  inch  to  the  treacher 
ous  and  resistless  pressure  of  the  years  ?  Or  else 
because  their  hopeless  perfection  induces  a  spe 
cies  of  exalted  envy?  And  isn't  it  simply  the 
incommensurable  emotion  evoked  by  the  genius 
of  the  painter  or  sculptor?  One  need  not  be 
hyperaesthetic  to  experience  something  akin  to 
muffled  pain  when  listening  to  certain  pages  of 
Tristan  and  Isolde,  or  while  submitting  to  the 
mystic  ecstasy  of  Jan  Van  Eyck  at  Ghent. 
The  exquisite  grace  of  the  Praxiteles  Hermes  or 
the  sweetness  of  life  we  recognise  in  Donatello 
may  invade  the  soul  with  messages  of  melan 
choly,  and  not  come  as  ministers  of  joy. 

One  can't  study  the  masters  too  much  —  I 
mean,  from  the  amateur's  view-point;  in  the 
case  of  an  artist  it  depends  on  the  receptivity 
of  his  temperament.  Velasquez  didn't  like  Ra 
phael,  and  it  was  Boucher  who  warned  Frago- 
nard,  when  he  went  to  Rome,  not  to  take  the 
Italian  painters  too  seriously.  Imitation  may 
be  the  sincerest  form  of  flattery,  but  it  some 
times  stifles  individuality.  I  think  it  is  prob 
ably  the  belief  that  never  again  will  this  planet 
have  another  golden  age  of  painting  and  sculp 
ture  that  arouses  in  me  the  melancholy  I  men 
tion.  Music  has  passed  its  prime  and  is  now 
entering  the  twilight  of  perfections  past  for  ever. 
So  is  it  with  the  Seven  Arts.  Nevertheless, 
there  is  no  need  of  pessimism.  Even  if  we  could, 
it  would  not  be  well  to  repeat  the  formulas  of 
art  accomplished,  born  as  they  were  of  certain 
250 


MELANCHOLY  OF  MASTERPIECES 

conditions,  social  as  well  as  technical.  Other 
days,  other  plays.  And  that  is  the  blight  on 
all  academic  art.  "Traditional  art,"  says  Frank 
Rutter,  "is  the  art  of  respectable  plagiarism,"  a 
slight  variation  on  Paul  Gauguin's  more  revolu 
tionary  axiom.  No  fear  of  any  artist  being  too 
original.  "There  is  no  isolated  truth,"  ex 
claimed  Millet;  but  Constable  wrote:  "A  good 
thing  is  never  done  twice."  Best  of  all,  it  was 
R.  A.  M.  Stevenson  who  said  in  effect  that 
after  studying  Velasquez  at  the  Prado  he  had 
modified  his  opinions  as  to  the  originality  of 
modern  art.  Let  us  admit  that  there  is  no  hope 
of  ever  rivalling  the  dead;  yet  a  new  beauty 
may  be  born,  a  new  vision,  and  with  it  neces 
sarily  new  technical  procedures.  When  I  say 
"new,"  I  mean  a  new  variation  on  the  past. 
To-day  the  Chinese  and  Assyrian  are  revived. 
It  is  the  denial  of  these  very  obvious  truths 
that  makes  academic  critics  slightly  ridiculous. 
They  obstinately  refuse  to  see  the  sunlight  on 
the  canvases  of  the  Impressionists  just  as  they 
deny  the  sincerity  and  power  of  the  so-called 
post-Impressionists.  The  transvaluation  of  crit 
ical  values  must  follow  in  the  trail  of  revolutions. 
It  is  a  pity  that  New  York  as  yet  has  not  had 
an  opportunity  of  viewing  the  best  Cezannes, 
Gauguins,  and  Van  Goghs.  I  did  not  see  the 
exhibition  several  years  ago  at  the  Armory, 
which  was  none  the  less  an  eye-opener.  But 
I  have  been  told  by  those  whose  opinion  and 
knowledge  are  incontrovertible  that  this  trinity 

251 


MELANCHOLY  OF  MASTERPIECES 

of  the  modern  movement  was  inadequately  rep 
resented;  furthermore,  Henri  Matisse,  a  painter 
of  indubitable  skill  and  originality,  did  not  get 
a  fair  showing.  It  would  be  a  superfluous  and 
thankless  task  to  argue  with  critics  or  art 
ists  who  refuse  to  acknowledge  Manet,  Monet, 
Degas.  These  men  are  already  classics.  Go 
to  the  Louvre  and  judge  for  yourself.  Impres 
sionism  has  served  its  purpose;  it  was  too  per 
sonal  in  the  case  of  Claude  Monet  to  be  suc 
cessfully  practised  by  every  one.  Since  him 
many  have  hopelessly  attempted  the  bending 
of  his  bow.  Manet  is  an  incomplete  Velasquez; 
but  he  is  a  great  colourist,  and  interpreted  in 
his  fluid,  nervous  manner  the  " modern"  spirit. 
Degas,  master  designer,  whose  line  is  as  mighty 
as  Ingres  his  master,  is  by  courtesy  associated 
with  the  Impressionistic  group,  though  his 
methods  and  theirs  are  poles  asunder.  It  seems 
that  because  he  didn't  imitate  Ingres  in  his 
choice  of  subject-matter  he  is  carped  at.  To 
day  the  newest  "vision"  has  reverted  to  the 
sharpest  possible  silhouettes  and,  to  add  confu 
sion,  includes  rhythms  that  a  decade  ago  would 
not  have  been  thought  possible. 

II 

I  can't  agree  with  those  who  call  Paul  C6- 

zanne   the   "Nietzsche   of   painting,"   because 

Nietzsche    is  brilliant   and   original   while   the 

fundamental  qualities  of  Cezanne  are  sincerity, 

252 


MELANCHOLY  OF  MASTERPIECES 

a  dogged  sincerity,  and  also  splendid  colouring 
—  the  value  of  the  pigment  in  and  for  itself, 
the  strength  and  harmony  of  colour.  His  train 
ing  was  in  the  classics.  He  knew  Manet  and 
Monet,  but  his  personal  temperament  did  not 
incline  him  to  their  forms  of  Impressionism.  A 
sober,  calculating  workman,  not  a  heaven- 
storming  genius,  yet  a  painter  whose  procedure 
has  served  as  a  point  of  departure  for  the 
younger  tribe.  Like  Liszt,  Cezanne  is  the  pro 
genitor  of  a  school,  for  Wagner  founded  no  great 
school  as  much  as  he  influenced  his  contempo 
raries;  he  was  too  coiriplete  in  himself  to  leave 
artistic  descendants,  and  Liszt,  an  intermediate 
type,  influenced  not  only  Wagner  but  the  Rus 
sians  and  the  Neo-Frenchman.  The  greatest  dis 
ciples  of  Cezanne  are  Gauguin  and  Van  Gogh. 
Mr.  Brownell  once  wrote:  "We  only  care  for 
facts  when  they  explain  truths,"  and  the  facts  of 
Cezanne  have  that  merit.  He  is  truthful  to  the 
degree  of  eliminating  many  important  artistic 
factors  from  his  canvases.  But  he  realises  the 
bulk  and  weight  of  objects;  he  delineates  their 
density  and  profile.  His  landscapes  and  his  hu 
mans  are  as  real  as  Manet's;  he  seeks  to  paint 
the  actual,  not  the  relative.  There  is  strength 
if  not  beauty  —  the  old  canonic  beauty  —  and  in 
the  place  of  the  latter  may  be  found  rich  colour. 
A  master  of  values,  Cezanne.  After  all,  paint  is 
thicker  than  academic  culture. 

I  saw  the  first  Paul  Gauguin  exhibition  at 
Durand-Ruel's  in  Paris  years  ago.     I  recall  con- 

253 


MELANCHOLY  OF  MASTERPIECES 

temporary  criticism.  "The  figures  are  outlined 
in  firm  strokes  and  painted  in  broad,  flat  tints 
on  canvas  that  has  the  texture  of  tapestry. 
Many  of  these  works  are  made  repulsive  by 
their  aspect  of  multicoloured  crude  and  barbar 
ous  imagery.  Yet  one  cannot  but  acknowledge 
the  fundamental  qualities,  the  lovely  values,  the 
ornamental  taste,  and  the  impression  of  primi 
tive  animalism."  Since  that  rather  faint  praise 
Gauguin  is  aloft  with  the  Olympians.  His  art 
is  essentially  classic.  Again  his  new  themes 
puzzled  critics.  A  decorative  painter  born,  he 
is  fit  for  the  company  of  Baudry  the  eclectic, 
Moreau  the  symbolist,  Puvis  de  Chavannes, 
greatest  of  modern  mural  painters,  and  the  star 
lit  Besnard.  A  rolling  stone  was  Gauguin,  one 
that  gathered  no  stale  moss.  He  saw  with  eyes 
that  at  Tahiti  became  "  innocent."  The  novelty 
of  the  flora  and  fauna  there  should  not  be 
overlooked  in  this  artistic  recrudescence.  His 
natural  inclination  toward  decorative  subjects 
rekindled  in  the  presence  of  the  tropical  wilder 
ness;  at  every  step  he  discovered  new  motives. 
The  very  largeness  of  the  forms  about  him, 
whether  human,  vegetable,  or  floral,  appealed 
to  his  bold  brush,  and  I  think  that  critics  should 
take  this  into  consideration  before  declaring  his 
southern  pictures  garish.  They  often  seem  so, 
but  then  the  sunset  there  is  glaring,  the  shad 
ows  ponderous  and  full  of  harsh  complementary 
reflects,  while  humanity  wears  another  aspect 
in  this  southern  island  where  distance  is  anni- 

254 


MELANCHOLY  OF  MASTERPIECES 

hilated  by  the  clarity  of  the  atmosphere.  No, 
Paul  Gauguin  is  certainly  not  a  plagiarist. 
Clive  Bell  has  written:  "Great  artists  never 
look  back."  I  believe  the  opposite;  all  great 
artists  look  back  and  from  the  past  create  a 
new  synthesis. 

Wells  has  said:  "Better  plunder  than  paraly 
sis,"  the  obverse  of  Gauguin's  teaching,  and  if 
Vincent  Van  Gogh  "plundered"  in  his  youth 
it  was  not  because  he  feared  "paralysis."  He 
merely  practised  his  scales  in  private  before  at 
tempting  public  performance.  Remember  that 
none  of  these  revolutionary  artists  jumped  over 
board  in  the  beginning  without  swimming- 
bladders.  They  were  all,  and  are  all,  men  who 
have  served  their  technical  apprenticeship  be 
fore  rebellion  and  complete  self-expression. 

The  gods  of  Van  Gogh  were  Rembrandt, 
Delacroix,  Daumier,  Monticelli,  and  Millet. 
The  latter  was  a  veritable  passion  with  him. 
He  said  of  him,  and  the  remark  was  a  sign 
post  for  his  own  future:  "Rembrandt  and  Dela 
croix  painted  the  person  of  Jesus,  Millet  his 
teaching."  This  preoccupation  with  moral  ideas 
lent  a  marked  intensity  to  his  narrow  tempera 
ment.  Ill-balanced  he  was;  there  was  madness 
in  the  family;  both  his  brother  and  himself 
committed  suicide.  His  adoration  of  Monti 
celli  and  his  jewelled  style  led  him  to  Impres 
sionism.  But  colour  for  colour's  sake  or  optical 
illusion  did  not  long  hold  him.  The  overloaded 
paint  in  his  earlier  works  soon  gave  way  to  flat 

255 


MELANCHOLY  OF  MASTERPIECES 

modelling.  His  effects  are  achieved  by  sweep 
ing  contours  instead  of  a  series  of  planes.  There 
are  weight,  sharp  silhouettes,  and  cruel  analy 
sis.  His  colour  harmonies  are  brilliant,  disso 
ciated  from  our  notions  of  the  normal.  He  is  a 
genuine  realist  as  opposed  to  the  decorative 
classicism  of  Gauguin.  His  work  was  not  much 
affected  by  Gauguin,  though  he  has  been  classed 
in  the  same  school.  Cezanne  openly  repudi 
ated  both  men.  "A  sun  in  his  head  and  a 
hurricane  hi  his  heart,"  was  said  of  him,  as  it 
was  first  said  of  Delacroix  by  a  critical  con 
temporary.  Vincent  Van  Gogh  is,  to  my  way 
of  thinking,  the  greatest  genius  of  the  trio  under 
discussion.  After  them  followed  the  Uglicists 
and  the  passionate  patterns  and  emotional  curves 
of  the  Cubists. 

Henri  Matisse  has  science,  he  is  responsive  to 
all  the  inflections  of  the  human  form,  and  has 
at  his  finger-tips  all  the  nuances  of  colour.  He 
is  one  of  those  lucky  men  for  whom  the  sim 
plest  elements  suffice  to  create  a  living  art. 
With  a  few  touches  a  flower,  a  woman,  grow 
before  your  eyes.  He  is  a  magician,  and  when 
his  taste  for  experimenting  with  deformations 
changes  we  may  expect  a  gallery  of  master 
pieces.  At  present,  pushed  by  friends  and  foes, 
he  can't  resist  the  temptation  to  explode  fire 
crackers  on  the  front  stoop  of  the  Institute. 
But  a  master  of  line,  of  decoration,  of  alluring 
rhythms.  Whistler  went  to  Japan  on  an  artistic 
adventure.  Matisse  has  gone  to  China,  where 

256 


MELANCHOLY  OF  MASTERPIECES 

rhythm,  not  imitation,  is  the  chiefest  quality 
in  art. 

Such  men  as  Matisse,  Augustus  John,  and 
Arthur  B.  Davies  excel  as  draughtsmen.  The 
sketches  of  the  first-named  are  those  of  a  sculp 
tor,  almost  instantaneous  notations  of  attitudes 
and  gestures.  The  movement,  not  the  mass,  is 
the  goal  sought  for  by  all  of  them.  The  usual 
crowd  of  charlatans,  camp-followers,  hangers-on 
may  be  found  loudly  praising  their  own  wares  in 
this  Neo-Impressionist  school  —  if  school  it  be  — 
but  it  is  only  fair  to  judge  the  most  serious  and 
gifted  painters  and  sculptors  of  the  day.  Al 
ready  there  are  signs  that  the  extremists,  con 
tortionists,  hysterical  humbugs,  Zonists,  Fu 
turists,  and  fakers  generally  are  disappearing. 
What  is  good  will  abide,  as  is  the  case  with  Im 
pressionism;  light  and  atmosphere  are  its  lessons; 
the  later  men  have  other  ideals:  form  and 
rhythm,  and  a  more  spiritual  interpretation  of 
"facts." 

HI 

The  Comparative  Exhibition  in  New  York 
over  ten  years  ago  proved  that  it  is  dangerous  to 
mix  disparate  schools  and  aims  and  personali 
ties.  And  while  the  undertaking  was  laudable, 
seeking  as  it  did  to  dissipate  our  artistic  provin 
ciality,  it  but  emphasised  it  —  proved  beyond 
the  peradventure  of  a  doubt  American  depen 
dence  on  foreign  art.  Technically,  to-day,  the 
majority  of  our  best  painters  stem  from  France, 

257 


MELANCHOLY  OF  MASTERPIECES 

as  formerly  they  imitated  English  models  or 
studied  at  Diisseldorf  and  Munich.  When  the 
Barbizon  group  made  their  influence  felt  our 
landscapists  immediately  betrayed  the  impact  of 
the  new  vision,  the  new  technique.  Our  younger 
men  are  just  as  progressive  as  were  their  fathers 
and  grandfathers.  Every  fresh  generation  uses 
as  a  spring-board  for  its  achievements  the  previ 
ous  generation.  They  have  a  lot  to  put  on 
canvas,  new  sights  that  only  America  can  show. 
What  matter  the  tools  if  they  have,  these  young 
chaps,  individuality?  Must  they  continue  to 
peer  through  the  studio  spectacles  of  their  grand 
fathers  ?  They  make  mistakes,  as  did  their  pred 
ecessors.  They  experiment;  art  is  not  a  fixed 
quantity,  but  a  ceaseless  experimenting.  They 
are  often  raw,  crude,  harsh;  but  they  deal  in 
character  and  actuality.  They  paint  their  en 
vironment  —  the  only  true  historic  method  — 
and  they  do  this  with  a  modern  technique. 
Manet,  Goya,  Renoir,  Monet,  Pissarro,  Tou 
louse-Lautrec,  Degas,  Whistler,  and  others  may 
be  noted  hi  the  technical  schemes  of  nine  out 
of  ten  native-born  American  artists.  The  ques 
tion  at  issue  is  whether  our  new  men  have  any 
thing  to  say,  and  do  they  say  it  in  a  personal 
manner.  I  think  the  answer  is  a  decided  affirm 
ative.  We  can't  compete  with  the  great  names 
in  art,  but  in  the  contemporary  swim  we  fairly 
hold  our  own. 

Consider  our  recent  Academy  exhibitions  — 
and  I  prefer  to  take  this  stronghold  of  anti- 

258 


MELANCHOLY  OF  MASTERPIECES 

quated  art  and  prejudices  as  a  starting-point 
rather  than  the  work  of  the  out-and-out  insur 
gents  —  consider,  I  repeat,  the  Academy,  and 
then  try  to  recall,  say,  ten  years  ago  and  the 
pictures  that  then  hung  on  the  line.  Decidedly, 
as  Zola  would  say,  there  has  been  a  cleaning  up 
of  dirty  old  palettes,  an  inrush  of  fresh  air  and 
sunshine.  In  landscape  we  excel,  easily  lead 
ing  the  English  painters.  Of  Germany  I  do  not 
care  to  speak  here:  the  sea  of  mud  that  passes 
for  colour,  the  clumsiness  of  handling,  and  the 
general  heavy  self-satisfaction  discourage  the 
most  ardent  champion  of  the  Teutonic  art.  In 
England,  Burlington  House  still  sets  the  fash 
ion.  At  one  Royal  Academy  I  attended  I  found 
throngs  before  a  melodramatic  anecdote  by  John 
Collier,  entitled  The  Fallen  Ideal.  It  had  the 
rigidity  of  a  tinted  photograph.  But  it  hit  the 
"gallery,"  which  dearly  loves  a  story  in  paint. 
The  two  Sargent  landscapes  did  not  attract,  yet 
they  killed  every  picture  within  optical  range. 
Nor  was  Collier's  the  worst  offence  in  an  enor 
mous  gathering  of  mediocre  canvases.  One 
must  go,  nowadays,  to  the  New  English  Art  Club 
to  see  the  fine  flower  of  new  English  art.  There 
Augustus  John  reigns,  but  he  is  not  to  be  con 
fined  in  parochial  limits;  he  is  a  "European 
event,"  not  merely  Welsh.  He  dominates  the 
club  as  he  dominates  English  art.  What's  one 
man's  paint  may  be  another's  poison.  I  never 
saw  so  many  examples  of  his  except  in  Mr. 
John  Quinn's  collection  —  who  has  the  largest 

259 


MELANCHOLY  OF   MASTERPIECES 

gathering  in  America  of  the  work  of  this  virile 
painter  and  draughtsman.  His  cartoon  —  The 
Flute  of  Pan  (the  property  of  Mr.  Quinn)  — 
hanging  in  the  winter  show  of  the  English  Art 
Club,  reveals  the  artist's  impulse  toward  large 
decorative  schemes.  At  first  the  composition 
seems  huddled,  but  the  cross-rhythms  and  avoid 
ance  of  facile  pose  are  the  reason  for  this  im 
pression.  The  work  is  magisterial.  It  grows 
upon  one,  though  it  is  doubtful  whether  it  will 
ever  make  the  appeal  popular.  John's  colour 
spots  are  seductive.  He  usually  takes  a  single 
model  and  plays  with  the  motive  as  varyingly 
as  did  Brahms  in  his  variations  on  a  theme 
by  Paganini.  But  with  all  his  transcendental 
virtuosity  the  Welsh  painter  is  never  academic; 
he  is  often  rank  in  his  expression  of  human 
ity,  human,  all-too-human,  as  Nietzsche  would 
have  said.  A  great  personality  (with  greater 
potentialities)  is  that  of  Augustus  John.  But 
aside  from  his  powerful  personality  and  remark 
able  craftsmanship,  who  is  there  that  can't  be 
matched  by  our  own  men  ?  There  are  no  land- 
scapists  like  ours  —  is  it  necessary  to  count  them 
off  name  by  name?  Neither  are  our  figure- 
painters  excelled.  I  know  comparisons  are  not 
courteous,  and  I  forbear  particularising.  John 
S.  Sargent,  bur  greatest  painter  of  surfaces,  of 
the  mundane  scene,  was  not  even  born  here, 
though  he  is  of  American  parentage.  Never 
theless,  we  claim  him.  Then  there  is  Whistler, 
most  elusive  of  our  artists.  Is  he  American? 
260 


MELANCHOLY  OF  MASTERPIECES 

That  question  has  been  answered.  He  is,  even 
if  he  deals  with  foreign  subject-matter.  Wonder 
fully  wrought,  magically  coloured,  rich  and  dim, 
are  his  pictures,  and  one,  to  employ  the  phrase 
of  an  English  critic,  is  fain  to  believe  that  his 
brush  was  dipped  in  mist,  not  pigment. 

Let  us  be  catholic.  Let  us  try  to  shift  anew 
the  focus  of  criticism  when  a  fresh  personality 
swims  into  our  ken.  Let  us  study  each  man 
according  to  his  temperament  and  not  insist 
that  he  should  chime  with  other  men's  music. 
The  Beckmesser  style  of  awarding  good  and 
bad  marks  is  obsolete.  To  miss  modern  art  is 
to  miss  one  of  the  few  thrills  that  life  holds. 
Your  true  decadent  copies  the  past  and  closes 
his  eyes  to  the  insistent  vibrations  of  his  day. 
I  know  that  it  is  not  every  one  who  can  enjoy 
Botticelli  and  Monet,  Diirer  and  Manet,  Rem 
brandt  and  Matisse.  Ready-made  admiration  is 
fatal  to  youthful  minds;  nevertheless,  we  should, 
all  of  us,  old  as  well  as  young  —  particularly  the 
academic  elderly  —  cultivate  a  broader  compre 
hension  of  the  later  schools  and  personalities. 
Art  is  protean.  But  will,  I  ask  myself,  posterity 
sit  before  the  masterpieces  of  Matisse,  Picasso> 
and  Van  Dongen,  and  experience  that  nostalgia 
of  the  ideal  of  which  I  wrote  at  the  beginning  of 
these  desultory  notes  ?  Why  not  ?  There  may 
be  other  ideals  in  those  remote  times,  ideals  that 
may  be  found  incarnate  in  some  new-fangled  tre 
mendous  Gehenna.  But  nature  will  always  re 
main  modern. 

261 


MELANCHOLY  OF  MASTERPIECES 

II 
THE  ITALIAN  FUTURIST  PAINTERS 

Because  I  had  strolled  over  to  buy  a  news 
paper  at  a  kiosk  hard  by  the  Rijks  Museum 
in  Amsterdam,  I  discovered  an  announcement 
that  the  Italian  Futurists  were  holding  an 
exhibition  in  De  Roos  Gallery  on  the  Rokin- 
dam.  This  was  early  in  September,  1912. 
What  a  chance,  I  thought,  to  compare  the  new 
with  the  old.  After  that  glorious  trinity,  Rem 
brandt,  Frans  Hals,  and  Vermeer,  hanging  in 
the  Rijks,  what  a  piquant  contrast  to  study 
the  new-fangled  heresies  and  fantastic  high- 
kicking  of  the  Futurists!  This  group,  consist 
ing  of  five  Italian  painters  in  company  with 
the  poet  Marinetti  as  a  self-constituted  chef 
d'ecole,  is  perfectly  agreed  that  all  the  old  con 
ventions  of  pictorial  art  have  outlived  their 
usefulness;  that  drawing,  colour,  perspective, 
harmonious  composition  must  walk  the  plank 
as  far  as  they  are  concerned;  in  a  word,  classic, 
romantic,  impressionistic  art  is  doomed;  only 
symbolism  will  endure;  for  symbolism  only  is 
there  a  future.  Signer  Marinetti,  who  coined 
the  hideous  word,  "Futurism,"  goes  still  further. 
Literature,  too,  must  throw  off  the  yoke  of  syn 
tax.  The  adjective  must  be  abolished,  the  verb 
of  the  infinite  should  be  always  employed;  the 
adverb  must  follow  the  adjective;  every  sub 
stantive  should  have  its  double;  away  with 
262 


MELANCHOLY  OF  MASTERPIECES 

punctuation;  you  must  "orchestrate"  your  lan 
guage  (this  outrivals  Rene  Ghil);  the  personal 
pronoun  is  also  to  disappear  with  the  rest  of 
the  outmoded  literary  baggage,  which  was  once 
so  useful  to  such  moribund  mediocrities  (the 
phrase  is  of  Marinetti's  making)  as  Dante,  Pe 
trarch,  Tasso,  Alfieri;  even  D'Annunzio  is  be 
come  a  moss-covered  reactionary. 

I  purposely  mention  Marinetti  and  his  mani 
festo  for  the  reason  that  this  movement  in 
painting  and  sculpture  is  decidedly  "literary," 
the  very  accusation  of  which  makes  the  insur 
gents  mightily  rage.  For  example,  I  came  across 
in  De  Kunst,  a  Dutch  art  publication  in  Am 
sterdam,  a  specimen  of  Marinetti's  sublimated 
prose,  the  one  page  of  which  is  supposed  to 
contain  more  suggestive  images  and  ideas  than 
a  library  written  in  the  old-fashioned  manner. 
Here  are  a  few  lines  (Battle  is  the  title  and 
the  prose  is  in  French): 

"Bataille.  Poids-odeur.  Midi  %  flutes  gla- 
pissement  embrasement  toumb  toumb  alarme 
gargaresch  eraquement  crepitation  marche,"  etc. 

This  parrot  lingo,  a  mere  stringing  together 
of  verbs  and  nouns,  reminds  one  of  the  way  the 
little  African  child  was  taught  to  say,  dog,  man, 
horse,  cow,  pump.  When  at  Turin  in  March, 
1910,  they  threw  rotten  eggs  at  Marinetti,  in 
the  Chiarella  Theatre,  the  audience  was  but 
venting  its  feelings  of  indignation  because  of 
such  silly  utterances.  Baudelaire,  patterning 
after  Poe  and  Bertrand,  fashioned  poems  in 
263 


MELANCHOLY  OF  MASTERPIECES 

prose  and  created  images  of  beauty;  following 
him  Huysmans  added  a  novel  nuance  and  made 
the  form  still  more  concentrated.  But  Signer 
Marinetti  —  there  are  no  ideas  in  his  prose  and 
his  images  are  nil  —  writes  as  if  he  were  using  a 
cable  code,  a  crazy  one  at  that.  How  far  he  is 
responsible  for  the  "aesthetic"  of  the  Futurist 
art  I  don't  know.  If  he  is  responsible  at  all 
then  he  has  worked  much  mischief,  for  several 
of  the  five  painters  are  men  of  unquestionable 
ability,  skilled  brush  workers  and  of  an  artistic 
sincerity  that  is  without  suspicion.  Mind  you, 
I  don't  say  all  of  the  groups;  there  are  charla 
tans  who  hang  on  to  the  coat-tails  of  every  tal 
ented  man  or  are  camp-followers  in  every  move 
ment.  These  five  painters:  Umberto  Boccioni 
(Milan);  Carlo  D.  Carra  (Milan);  Luigi  Rus- 
solo  (Milan);  Giacomo  Balla  (Rome),  and  Gino 
Severini  (Paris)  do  not  paint  for  money.  The 
pictures  in  this  exhibition  are  not  for  sale;  in 
deed,  I  doubt  if  the  affair  pays  expenses,  for  it 
has  travelled  far;  from  Turin  and  Milan  and 
Rome,  to  Paris,  London,  Berlin,  Amsterdam. 
It  will  be  in  New  York  soon,  and  then  look  out 
for  a  repetition  of  the  Playboy  of  the  Western 
World  scandal.  Some  of  the  pictures  are  very 
provocative. 

Naturally  the  antithesis  of  old  and  new  was 
unescapable  the  chilly  September  afternoon  that 
I  entered  the  "Roos"  gallery.  Fresh  from  The 
Milk  Jug,  that  miracle  in  paint  by  Vermeer 
(formerly  of  the  Jan  Six  Collection);  from  the 
264 


MELANCHOLY  OF  MASTERPIECES 

Rembrandt  Night  Watch  (which  was  not  much 
damaged  by  the  maniac  who  slashed  the  right 
knee  of  the  principal  figure);  from  the  two  or 
three  splendid  portraits  by  Frans  Hals;  from 
the  Elizabeth  Bas  and  the  Stallmeesters  by 
Rembrandt  —  from  all  these  masterpieces  of 
great  paint,  poetry,  humour,  humanity,  I  con 
fess  the  transition  to  the  wild  and  whirling  ka 
leidoscopes  called  pictures  by  these  ferocious 
Futurists  was  too  sudden  for  my  eyes  and  under 
standing.  It  was  some  time  before  I  could  ori 
ent  myself  optically.  If  you  have  ever  peered 
through  one  of  those  pasteboard  cylinders  dear 
to  childhood,  you  will  catch  a  tithe  of  my  early 
sensations.  All  that  I  had  read  of  the  canvases 
was  mere  colourless  phrase-making.  After  the 
first  shudder  had  passed,  the  magnetism,  a 
hideous  magnetism,  drew  you  to  the  walls,  the 
lunatic  patterns  began  to  yield  up  vague  mean 
ings;  arabesques  that  threatened  one's  sanity 
became  almost  intelligible.  The  yelling  walls 
seemed  to  sing  more  in  tune,  the  flaring  tones 
softened  a  trifle,  there  was  method  in  all  this 
madness  and  presently  you  discovered  that  there 
was  more  method  than  madness,  and  that  way 
critical  madness  lay.  You  are  not  in  the  least 
converted  to  this  arbitrary  and  ignominious 
splashing  of  raw  tints,  but  you  are  interested  — 
you  linger,  you  study  and  then  you  fall  to  read 
ing  the  philosophy  of  the  movement.  It  is  the 
hour  of  your  aperitive,  1'heure  exquise,  when  you 
take  your  departure,  and  out  on  the  noisy  Ro- 
265 


MELANCHOLY  OF  MASTERPIECES 

kindam,  not  far  from  the  Central  railway  sta 
tion,  you  rub  your  eyes  and  then  note  that  the 
very  chaos  you  resented  in  the  canvases  of  the 
Futurists  is  in  the  streets  —  which  are  being 
repaved.  Snorting  motor-cars  and  rumbling 
busses  go  by,  people  seem  to  be  walking  up  in 
clined  planes,  the  houses  lean  over  and  their 
windows  leer  and  beckon  to  you;  the  sky  is 
like  a  stage  cloth  and  sweeps  the  roofs;  you 
hurry  to  your  hotel  and  in  strong  tea  you  drown 
your  memories  of  the  Italian  Futurists. 

It  is  only  fair  to  give  their  side  of  the  case. 
This  I  shall  condense,  as  the  exuberant  lyricism 
and  defiant  dithyramb  soon  became  monoto 
nous.  They  write  like  very  young  and  enthusi 
astic  chaps,  and  they  are  for  the  most  part  ma 
ture  men  and  experienced  painters.  Luckily  for 
their  public,  Signer  Marinetti  and  his  friends 
did  not  adopt  his  Siamese  telegraphic  style  in 
their  printed  programme.  They  begin  by  stat 
ing  that  they  will  sing  the  love  of  danger,  the 
habit  of  energy  and  boldness.  The  essential  ele 
ments  of  their  poetry  will  be  courage,  daring, 
and  rebellion.  Literature  has  hitherto  glorified 
serene  immobility,  ecstasy,  and  sleep;  they  will 
extol  aggressive  movement,  feverish  insomnia, 
the  double-quick  step,  the  somersault,  the  box  on 
the  ear,  the  fisticuff.  They  declare  that  the 
world's  splendour  has  been  enriched  by  a  new 
beauty:  the  beauty  of  speed.  A  racing  car,  its 
frame  adorned  by  great  pipes,  like  snakes  with 
explosive  breath,  a  roaring  motor-car,  which 
266 


MELANCHOLY  OF   MASTERPIECES 

looks  as  though  running  on  shrapnel,  is  more 
beautiful  than  the  Winged  Victory  of  Samo- 
thrace  in  the  Louvre.  Note  just  here  the  speed- 
mania  motive.  There  is  no  more  beauty  except 
in  strife.  No  masterpiece  without  aggressive 
ness.  Poetry  must  be  a  violent  onslaught  upon 
the  unknown  forces,  commanding  them  to  bow 
before  man.  Now  there  is  nothing  particularly 
new  in  this.  Great  poetry  is  dynamic  as  it  is  also 
reflective  (the  Futurists  call  the  latter  "static"). 
They  say  they  stand  on  the  extreme  promontory 
of  the  centuries.  Why,  they  ask,  should  we  look 
behind  us,  when  we  have  to  break  into  the  mys 
terious  portals  of  the  impossible?  Time  and 
space  died  yesterday.  Already  we  live  in  the 
absolute,  since  we  have  already  created  speed, 
eternal  and  ever  present.  This  rigmarole  of 
metaphysics  betrays  the  influence  of  the  Henri 
Bergson  philosophy,  the  philosophy  of  rhythm 
and  rhythmic  motion.  It  is  just  as  original; 
i.  e.,  not  original  at  all.  Mother  Earth  is  still 
spinning  through  space  at  the  gait  originally 
imparted  to  her  by  the  sun's  superior  force. 
Mankind  on  her  outer  rind  spins  with  her.  Be 
cause  we  have  invented  steam  and  electric  cars, 
we  must  not  arrogate  to  ourselves  the  discovery 
of  speed.  What  has  speed  to  do  with  painting 
on  a  flat  surface,  painting  in  two  dimensions  of 
space  ?  Wait  a  bit !  We  are  coming  to  the 
application  of  rhythm  to  paint. 

The  Futurists  wish  to  glorify  war  —  the  only 
health-giver  of  the  world  —  militarism,  patriot- 
267 


MELANCHOLY  OF  MASTERPIECES 

ism,  the  destructive  arm  of  the  anarchist,  the 
beautiful  ideas  that  kill,  the  contempt  for  woman. 
They  wish  to  destroy  the  museums,  the  libraries 
(unlucky  Mr.  Carnegie  !),  to  fight  moralism,  fem 
inism,  and  ah1  opportunistic  and  utilitarian  mea 
sures.  Museums  are  for  them  cemeteries  of 
art;  to  admire  an  old  picture  is  to  pour  our 
sensitiveness  into  a  funeral  urn,  instead  of  cast 
ing  it  forward  in  violent  gushes  of  creation  and 
action.  So  set  fire  to  the  shelves  of  libraries ! 
Deviate  the  course  of  canals  to  flood  the  cel 
lars  of  museums !  Seize  pickaxes  and  ham 
mers  !  Sap  the  foundations  of  the  antique  cit 
ies  !  "We  stand  upon  the  summit  of  the  world 
and  once  more  we  cast  our  challenge  to  the 
stars."  Thus  F.  T.  Marinetti,  editor  of  Poesia. 

The  manifesto  of  the  new  crowd  is  too  lengthy 
to  reproduce;  but  here  are  a  few  of  its  tenets: 

ist:  That  imitation  must  be  despised,  and 
all  originality  glorified.  (How  novel !) 

2d:  That  it  is  essential  to  rebel  against  the 
tyranny  of  the  terms  "harmony"  and  "good 
taste"  as  being  too  elastic  expressions,  by  the 
help  of  which  it  is  easy  to  demolish  the  works 
of  Rembrandt,  of  Goya,  and  of  Rodin. 

3d:  That  the  art-critics  are  useless  or  harmful. 

4th:  That  ah"  subjects  previously  used  must 
be  swept  aside  in  order  to  express  our  whirling 
life  of  steel,  of  pride,  of  fever,  and  of  speed. 

5th:  That  the  name  of  "madman"  with  which 
it  is  attempted  to  gag  all  innovators,  should  be 
looked  upon  as  a  title  of  honour. 
268 


MELANCHOLY  OF   MASTERPIECES 

6th :  That  innate  complementariness  is  an  ab 
solute  necessity  in  painting,  just  as  free  metre 
in  poetry  or  polyphony  in  music.  Oh,  ass  who 
wrote  this !  Polyphony  is  not  a  modern  inven 
tion.  A  man  named  Bach,  Johann  Sebastian 
Bach,  wrote  fugues  of  an  extraordinary  beauty 
and  clearness  in  their  most  complicated  poly 
phony.  But  polyphony  (or  many  voices)  is  new 
in  painting,  and  to  the  Futurists  must  be  con 
ceded  the  originality  of  attempting  to  represent 
a  half  dozen  different  things  at  the  same  time  on 
canvas  —  a  dog's  tail,  a  woman's  laughter,  the 
thoughts  of  a  man  who  has  had  a  "hard  night," 
the  inside  of  a  motor-bus,  and  the  ideas  of  its 
passengers  concerning  its  bumping  wheels,  and 
what-not ! 

yth:  That  universal  dynamism  must  be  ren 
dered  in  painting  as  a  dynamic  sensation. 

8th :  That  in  the  manner  of  rendering  nature, 
the  essential  is  sincerity  and  purity  (more  copy 
book  maxims  for  us  !) . 

9th:  That  movement  and  light  destroy  the 
materiality  of  bodies  (a  truism  in  art  well  known 
to  Watteau,  Rembrandt,  Turner,  and  latterly, 
to  Claude  Monet  and  the  earlier  group  of  Im 
pressionists).  And  now  for  the  milk  in  the 
cocoanut. 

We  fight,  concludes  the  manifesto:  ist: 
Against  the  bituminous  tints  by  which  it  is 
attempted  to  obtain  the  patina  of  tone  upon 
modern  pictures.  (The  chief  objection  against 
this  statement  is  its  absolute  superfluousness. 
269 


MELANCHOLY  OF   MASTERPIECES 

The  Impressionists  forty  years  ago  attacked  bi 
tuminous  painting  and  finally  drove  it  out;  now 
it  is  coming  back  as  a  novelty.  The  Futurists 
are  gazing  backward.)  2d:  Against  the  super 
ficial  and  elementary  archaism  founded  upon 
flat  tints,  which,  by  imitating  the  linear  tech 
nique  of  the  Egyptians,  reduces  painting  to  a 
powerless  synthesis  both  childish  and  grotesque. 
3d:  Against  the  false  claims  of  belonging  to  the 
future  put  forward  by  the  Secessionists  and  the 
Independents,  who  have  installed  new  academies 
no  less  trite  and  attached  to  routine  than  the 
preceding  ones.  4th:  We  demand  for  ten  years 
the  total  suppression  of  the  nude  in  painting. 

There  are  thirty-four  pictures  in  the  show,  the 
catalogue  of  which  is  a  curiosity.  Boccioni's 
The  Street  Enters  the  Home  has  a  note  in  the 
catalogue  which  points  out  that  the  painter  does 
not  limit  himself  to  what  he  sees  in  the  square 
frame  of  the  window  as  would  a  simple  photog 
rapher,  but  he  also  reproduces  what  he  would 
see  by  looking  out  on  every  side  from  the  bal 
cony.  Isn't  this  lucid  ?  But  you  ought  to  see 
the  jumble  in  the  canvas  caused  by  the  painter 
casting  aside  the  chief  prerogative  of  an  artist, 
the  faculty  of  selection,  or,  rather,  as  Walter 
Pater  puts  it,  the  "tact  of  omission." 

There  is  the  motion  of  moonlight  in  one  can 
vas  and  in  No.  24,  by  Russolo,  entitled  Rebel 
lion,  there  is  an  effort  to  delineate  —  better  say 
express,  as  the  art  of  delineation  is  here  in  abey 
ance  —  the  collision  of  two  forces,  that  of  the 
270 


MELANCHOLY  OF   MASTERPIECES 

revolutionary  element  made  up  of  enthusiasm 
and  red  lyricism  against  the  force  of  inertia  and 
reactionary  resistance  of  tradition.  The  angles 
are  the  vibratory  waves  of  the  former  force  in 
motion.  The  perspective  of  the  houses  is  de 
stroyed  just  as  a  boxer  is  bent  double  by  re 
ceiving  a  blow  in  the  wind  (refined  image!). 
As  this  picture  is  purely  symbolical,  it  is  not 
open  to  objections;  but  isn't  it  rather  amusing? 

Memory  of  a  Night,  by  Russolo  (No.  23),  is 
"a  fantastic  impression  produced  not  by  line  but 
by  colour."  An  elongated  insect  or  snail  —  is 
it  a  man  or  a  grasshopper  ?  —  is  in  the  first 
plane;  back  of  him  is  a  girl's  face  with  plead 
ing  eyes;  an  explosion  of  light  in  the  back 
ground  is  evidently  intended  for  an  electric 
lamp;  the  rest  is  chaos. 

The  Milliner  (No.  32)  by  Severini,  the  painter 
calls:  "An  arabesque  of  the  movement  produced 
by  the  twinkling  colours  and  iridescence  of  the 
frills  and  furbelows  on  show;  the  electric  light 
divides  the  scene  into  defined  zones.  A  study 
of  simultaneous  penetration."  The  deathly  grin 
of  the  modiste  is  about  the  only  "simultaneous 
penetration"  that  I  could  see  in  the  canvas. 

As  confused  as  is  No.  27,  The  Pan-Pan  Dance 
at  the  Monico,  by  Severini,  there  are  some  vital 
bits,  excellent  modelling,  striking  detail,  though 
as  a  whole,  it  is  hard  to  unravel;  the  point  d'ap- 
pui  is  missing;  the  interest  is  nowhere  focussed, 
though  the  dancer  woman  soon  catches  the  eye. 
No  doubt  a  crowded  supper  room  in  a  Conti- 
271 


MELANCHOLY  OF  MASTERPIECES 

nental  cafe,  the  white  napery,  variegated  col 
ours  of  the  women's  attire,  the  movement  and 
blinding  glare  of  the  lights  are  a  chaotic  blur 
when  you  first  open  your  eyes  upon  them;  but 
the  human  eye  with  its  almost  infinite  capacity 
for  adaptation  soon  resolves  disorder  into  order, 
formlessness  into  form.  The  trouble  with  the 
Futurist  is  that  he  catches  the  full  force  of  the 
primal  impression,  then  later  loads  it  with  his 
own  subjective  fancies.  The  outcome  is  bound 
to  be  a  riddle. 

I  confess  without  hesitation  there  are  several 
pictures  in  the  exhibition  which  impressed  me. 
Power  is  power,  no  matter  the  strange  airs  it 
may  at  times  assume.  Browning's  Sordello,  de 
spite  its  numerous  obscure  passages,  is  withal  a 
work  of  high  purpose,  it  always  stirs  the  imag 
ination.  I  found  myself  staring  at  Carra's  Fu 
neral  of  the  Anarchist  Galli  and  wondering  after 
all  whether  a  conflict  shouldn't  be  represented 
in  a  conflicting  manner.  Zola  reproached  both 
De  Goncourt  and  Flaubert  for  their  verbal  ar 
tistry.  "Vulgar  happenings,"  he  said,  "should 
be  presented  in  the  bluntest  fashion."  And  then 
he  contradicted  himself  in  practice  by  attempt 
ing  to  write  like  Hugo  and  Flaubert.  Signer 
Carra,  who  probably  witnessed  the  street  row 
at  the  funeral  of  Galli  between  the  students  and 
the  police,  sets  before  us  in  all  its  vivacity  or 
rhythm  —  or  rhythms  —  the  fight.  It  is  a  real 
fight.  And  while  I  quite  agree  with  Edgar 
Degas,  who  said  he  could  make  a  crowd  out  of 
272 


MELANCHOLY  OF  MASTERPIECES 

four  or  five  figures  in  a  picture,  it  is  no  reflec 
tion  on  Carat's  power  to  do  the  same  with  a 
dozen  or  more.  A  picture  as  full  of  movement 
and  the  clash  of  combatants  as  is  the  battle 
section  of  the  Richard  Strauss  Symphony,  A 
Hero's  Life.  Realism  is  the  dominating  factor 
in  both  works.  The  cane  and  club  swinging 
sympathisers  of  the  anarchist  are  certainly  vital. 
In  what  then  consists  the  originality  of 
the  Futurists?  Possibly  their  blatant  claim  to 
originality.  The  Primitives,  Italian  and  Flem 
ish,  saw  the  universe  with  amazing  clearness; 
their  pictorial  metaphysics  was  clarity  itself; 
their  mysticism  was  never  muddy;  all  nature 
was  settled,  serene,  and  brilliantly  silhouetted. 
But  mark  you !  they,  too,  enjoyed  depicting 
a  half-dozen  happenings  on  the  same  canvas. 
Fresh  from  a  tour  through  the  galleries  of  Hol 
land,  Belgium,  and  France,  after  a  special  study 
of  the  Primitives,  I  quite  understand  what  the 
Futurists  are  after.  They  emulate  the  inno 
cence  of  the  eye  characteristic  of  the  early 
painters,  but  despite  their  strong  will  they  can 
not  recover  the  blitheness  and  sweetness,  the 
native  wood-note  wild,  nor  recapture  their  many 
careless  moods.  They  weave  the  pattern  closer, 
seeking  to  express  in  paint  a  psychology  that  is 
only  possible  in  literature.  And  they  endeavour 
to  imitate  music  with  its  haunting  suggestive- 
ness,  its  thematic  vagueness,  its  rhythmic  swift 
ness  and  splendour  of  tonalities.  In  vain.  No 
picture  can  spell  many  moods  simultaneously, 

273 


MELANCHOLY  OF  MASTERPIECES 

nor  paint  soul-states  successively  within  one 
frame.  These  painters  have  mistaken  their 
vocation.  They  should  have  been  musicians  or 
writers,  or  handle  the  more  satisfactory,  if  less 
subtle,  cinematograph. 

Will  there  ever  be  a  new  way  of  seeing  as  well 
as  representing  life,  animate  and  inanimate? 
Who  shall  say  ?  The  Impressionists,  working  on 
hints  from  Watteau,  Rembrandt,  Turner,  gave 
us  a  fresh  view  of  the  universe.  Rhythm  in  art 
is  no  new  thing.  In  the  figures  of  El  Greco  as 
in  the  prancing  horses  of  Gericault,  rhythm  in 
forms  every  inch  of  the  canvas.  The  Futur 
ists  are  seeking  a  new  synthesis,  and  their  work 
is  far  from  synthetic;  it  is  decomposition  —  in 
the  painter's  sense  of  the  word  —  carried  to  the 
point  of  distraction.  Doubtless  each  man  has 
a  definite  idea  when  he  takes  up  his  brush,  but 
all  the  king's  horses  and  all  the  king's  men 
can't  make  out  that  idea  when  blazoned  on  the 
canvas.  The  Futurists  may  be  for  the  future, 
but  not  for  to-day's  limited  range  of  vision. 


274 


XV 
IN  THE  WORKSHOP  OF  ZOLA 

TAINE  once  wrote:  "When  we  know  how  an 
artist  invents  we  can  foresee  his  inventions." 
As  to  Zola,  there  is  little  need  now  for  critical 
judgments  on  his  work.  He  is  definitely 
"placed";  we  know  him  for  what  he  is  —  a 
romancer  of  a  violent  idealistic  type  masquer 
ading  as  an  implacable  realist;  a  lyric  pessi 
mist  at  the  beginning  of  his  literary  career,  a 
sonorous  optimist  at  the  close,  with  vague  so 
cialistic  views  as  to  the  perfectibility  of  the 
human  race.  But  he  traversed  distances  be 
fore  he  finally  found  himself  a  field  in  which 
stirred  and  struggled  all  human  animality.  And 
he  was  more  Zola  when  he  wrote  Therese  Raquin 
than  in  his  later  trilogies  and  evangels.  As  an 
artist  it  is  doubtful  if  he  grew  after  1880;  repe 
tition  was  his  method  of  methods,  or,  as  he  once 
remarked  to  Edmond  de  Goncourt:  "Firstly,  I 
fix  my  nail,  and  then  with  a  blow  of  the  ham 
mer  I  send  it  a  centimetre  deep  into  the  brain 
of  the  public;  then  I  knock  it  in  as  far  again 
—  and  the  hammer  of  which  I  make  use  is  jour 
nalism."  And  a  tremendous  journalist  to  the 
end  was  Zola,  despite  his  books  and  naturalistic 
theories. 

275 


IN  THE  WORKSHOP  OF  ZOLA 

Again,  and  from  the  diary  of  the  same  sub 
limated  old  gossip,  Goncourt,  Zola  speaks: 
"After  the  rarefied  analysis  of  a  certain  kind 
of  sentiment,  such  as  the  work  done  by  Flau 
bert  in  Madame  Bovary;  after  the  analysis  of 
things,  plastic  and  artistic,  such  as  you  have 
given  us  in  your  dainty,  gemlike  writing,  there 
is  no  longer  any  room  for  the  younger  genera 
tion  of  writers;  there  is  nothing  left  for  them 
to  do,  .  .  .  there  no  longer  remains  a  single 
type  to  portray.  The  only  way  of  appealing 
to  the  public  is  by  strong  writing,  powerful 
creations,  and  by  the  number  of  volumes  given 
to  the  world."  Theory-ridden  Zola's  polem 
ical  writings,  like  those  of  Richard  Wagner's, 
must  be  set  down  to  special  pleading. 

Certainly  Zola  gave  the  world  a  number  of 
volumes,  and,  if  the  writing  was  not  always 
"strong"  —  his  style  is  usually  mediocre  —  the 
subjects  were  often  too  strong  for  polite  nostrils. 
As  Henri  Massis,  the  author  of  an  interesting 
book,  How  Zola  Composed  His  Novels,  says, 
"he  founded  his  work  on  a  theory  which  is 
the  most  singular  of  mistakes."  The  "experi 
mental"  novel  is  now  a  thing  as  extinct  as  the 
dodo,  yet  what  doughty  battles  were  fought  for 
its  shapeless  thesis.  The  truth  is  that  Zola 
invented  more  than  he  observed.  He  was  my 
opic,  not  a  trained  scrutiniser,  and  Huysmans, 
once  a  disciple,  later  an  opponent  of  the  "nat 
uralistic"  documents,  maliciously  remarked  that 
Zola  went  out  carriage  riding  in  the  country, 
276 


IN  THE  WORKSHOP  OF  ZOLA 

and  then  wrote  La  Terre.  Turgenieff  declared 
that  Zola  could  describe  sweat  on  a  human 
back,  but  never  told  us  what  the  human  thought. 
And  in  a  memorable  passage,  Huysmans  couches 
his  lance  against  the  kind  of  realism  Zola  rep 
resented,  admitting  the  service  performed  by 
that  romancer:  "We  must,  in  short,  follow  the 
great  highway  so  deeply  dug  out  by  Zola,  but 
it  is  also  necessary  to  trace  a  parallel  path  in 
the  air,  another  road  by  which  we  may  reach 
the  Beyond  and  the  Afterward,  to  achieve  thus 
a  spiritualistic  naturalism." 

Mr.  Massis  has  had  access  to  the  manuscripts 
of  Zola  deposited  by  his  widow  in  the  National 
Library,  Paris.  They  number  ninety  volumes; 
the  dossier  alone  of  Germinal  forms  four  vol 
umes  of  five  hundred  pages.  Such  industry 
seems  fabulous.  But,  if  it  did  not  pass  Zola 
through  the  long-envied  portals  of  the  Academy, 
it  has  won  for  his  ashes  such  an  honourable 
resting-place  as  the  Pantheon.  There  is  irony 
in  the  pranks  of  the  Zeitgeist.  Zola,  snubbed 
at  every  attempt  he  made  to  become  an  Im 
mortal  (unlike  his  friend  Daudet,  he  openly 
admitted  his  candidature,  not  sharing  with  the 
author  of  Sapho  his  sovereign  contempt  for  the 
f auteuils  of  the  Forty) ;  Zola,  in  an  hour  becom 
ing  the  most  unpopular  writer  in  France  after  his 
memorable  J'accuse,  a  fugitive  from  his  home, 
the  defender  of  a  seemingly  hopeless  cause;  Zola 
dead,  Dreyfus  exonerated,  and  the  powdered 
bones  of  Zola  in  the  Pantheon,  with  the  great 
277 


IN  THE  WORKSHOP  OF  ZOLA 

men  of  his  land.  Few  of  his  contemporaries 
who  voted  against  his  admission  to  the  Academy 
will  be  his  neighbours  in  the  eternal  sleep.  His 
admission  to  the  dead  Immortals  must  be  surely 
the  occasion  for  much  wagging  of  heads,  for 
reams  of  platitudinous  writing  on  the  subject 
of  fate  and  its  whirligig  caprice. 

This  stubborn,  silent  man  of  violent  imagina 
tion,  copious  vocabulary,  and  a  tenacity  unpar 
alleled  in  Literature,  knew  that  a  page  a  day  — 
a  thousand  words  daily  put  on  paper  every  day 
of  the  year  —  and  for  twenty  years,  would  rear 
a  huge  edifice.  He  stuck  to  his  desk  each  morn 
ing  of  his  life  from  the  time  he  sketched  the 
Plan  general;  he  made  such  terms  with  his  pub 
lishers  that  he  was  enabled  to  live  humbly,  yet 
comfortably,  in  the  beginning  with  his  "dear 
ones,"  his  wife  and  his  mother.  In  return  he 
wrote  two  volumes  a  year,  and,  with  the  excep 
tion  of  a  few  years,  his  production  was  as  steady 
as  water  flowing  from  a  hydrant.  This  compari 
son  was  once  applied  to  herself  by  George  Sand, 
Zola's  only  rival  in  the  matter  of  quantity.  But 
Madame  Sand  was  an  improviser;  with  notes 
she  never  bothered  herself;  in  her  letters  to 
Flaubert  she  laughed  over  the  human  documents 
of  Zola,  the  elaborate  note  taking  of  Daudet,  for 
she  was  blessed  with  an  excellent  memory  and 
a  huge  capacity  for  scribbling.  Not  so  Zola. 
Each  book  was  a  painful  parturition,  not  the 
pain  of  a  stylist  like  Flaubert,  but  the  Sisyphus- 
like  labor  of  getting  his  notes,  his  facts,  his 
278 


IN  THE  WORKSHOP  OF  ZOLA 

characters  marshalled  and  moving  to  a  conclu 
sion.  Like  Anthony  Trollope,  when  the  last 
page  of  a  book  was  finished  he  began  another. 
He  was  a  workman,  not  a  dilettante  of  letters. 

In  1868  he  had  blocked  out  his  formidable 
campaign.  Differing  with  Balzac  in  not  taking 
French  society  as  a  whole  for  a  subject,  he  never 
theless  owes,  as  do  all  French  fiction  writers 
since  1830  —  Stendhal  alone  excepted  —  his  lit 
erary  existence  to  Balzac;  Balzac,  from  whom 
all  blessings,  all  evils,  flow  in  the  domain  of  the 
novel;  Balzac,  realist,  idealist,  symbolist,  nat 
uralist,  humourist,  tragedian,  comedian,  aristo 
crat,  bourgeois,  poet,  and  cleric;  Balzac,  truly 
the  Shakespeare  of  France.  The  Human  Com 
edy  attracted  the  synthetic  brain  of  Zola  as  he 
often  tells  us  (see  L'CEuvre,  where  Sandoz,  the 
novelist,  Zola  himself,  explains  to  Claude  his 
scheme  of  a  prose  epic).  But  he  was  satisfied 
to  take  one  family  under  the  Second  Empire, 
the  Rougon-Macquarts  —  these  names  were  not 
at  first  in  the  form  we  now  know  them.  A  friend 
and  admirer  of  Flaubert,  he  followed,  broadly 
speaking,  his  method  of  proceeding  and  work; 
though  an  admirer  of  the  Goncourts,  he  did  not 
favour  their  preference  for  the  rare  case  or  the 
chiselled  epithet. 

Every-day  humanity  described  in  every-day 
speech  was  Zola's  ideal.  That  he  more  than 
once  achieved  this  ideal  is  not  to  be  denied. 
L'Assommoir  remains  his  masterpiece,  while 
Germinal  and  L'CEuvre  will  not  be  soon  forgot- 
279 


IN  THE  WORKSHOP  OF  ZOLA 

ten.  L'CEuvre  is  mentioned  because  its  finished 
style  is  rather  a  novelty  in  Zola's  vast  vat  of 
writing  wherein  scraps  and  fragments  of  Victor 
Hugo,  of  Chateaubriand,  of  the  Goncourts,  and 
of  Flaubert  boil  in  terrific  confusion.  Zola  never 
had  the  patience,  nor  the  time,  nor  perhaps  the 
desire  to  develop  an  individual  style.  He  built 
long  rows  of  ugly  houses,  all  looking  the  same, 
composed  of  mud,  of  stone,  brick,  sand,  straw, 
and  shining  pebbles.  Like  a  bird,  he  picked  up 
his  material  for  his  nest  where  he  could  find 
it.  His  faculty  of  selection  was  ill-developed. 
Everything  was  tossed  pell-mell  into  his  cellar; 
nothing  came  amiss  and  order  seldom  reigns. 
His  sentences,  unlike  Tolstoy's,  for  example,  are 
not  closely  linked;  to  read  Zola  aloud  is  dis 
concerting.  There  is  no  music  in  his  periods, 
his  rhythms  are  sluggish,  and  he  entirely  fails 
in  evoking  with  a  few  poignant  phrases,  as  did 
the  Goncourts,  a  scene,  an  incident.  Never  the 
illuminating  word,  never  the  phrase  that  spells 
the  transfiguration  of  the  spirit. 

Among  his  contemporaries  Tolstoy  was  the 
only  one  who  matches  him  in  the  accumulation 
of  details,  but  for  the  Russian  every  detail  mod 
ulates  into  another,  notwithstanding  their  enor 
mous  number.  The  story  marches,  the  little 
facts,  insignificant  at  first,  range  themselves 
into  definite  illuminations  of  the  theme,  just  as 
a  traveller  afoot  on  a  hot,  dusty  road  misses  the 
saliency  of  the  landscape,  but  realises  its  per 
spective  when  he  ascends  a  hill.  There  is  al- 
280 


IN  THE  WORKSHOP  OF  ZOLA 

ways  perspective  in  Tolstoy;  in  Zola  it  is  rare. 
Yet  he  masses  his  forces  as  would  some  sullen 
giant,  confident  in  the  end  of  victory  through 
sheer  bulk  and  weight.  His  power  is  gloomy, 
cruel,  pitiless;  but  indubitable  power  he  has. 

After  the  rather  dainty  writing  of  his  Contes  a 
Ninon,  Zola  never  reached  such  compression  and 
clarity  again  until  he  wrote  L'Attaque  au  Moulin, 
in  Les  Soirees  deMedan.  To  be  quite  frank,  he  re 
wrote  Flaubert  and  the  Goncourts  in  many  of  his 
books.  He  was,  using  the  phrase  in  its  real  sense, 
the  "  grand  vulgariser  "  of  those  finished,  though 
somewhat  remote  artists.  To  the  Goncourts 
fame  came  slowly;  it  was  by  a  process  of  elim 
ination  rather  than  through  the  voluntary  of 
fering  of  popular  esteem.  And  it  is  not  to  be 
denied  that  Madame  B  ovary  owed  much  of  its 
early  success  to  the  fact  that  its  author  was 
prosecuted  for  an  outrage  against  public  morals 
—  poor  Emma  B  ovary  whose  life,  as  Henry 
James  once  confessed,  might  furnish  a  moral 
for  a  Sunday-school  class.  Thus  fashions  in 
books  wax  and  wane.  Zola  copied  and  "vul 
garised"  Charles  de  Mailly,  Manette  Salomon, 
Germinie  Lacerteux  (Charles  Monselet  saluted 
the  book  with  the  amiable  title  "sculptured 
slime"),  Madame  Gervasais  —  for  his  Roman 
story  —  Soeur  Philomene,  all  by  Goncourt,and  he 
literally  founded  his  method  on  Madame  Bovary 
and  L'Education  Sentimentale,  particularly  upon 
the  latter,  the  greatest,  and  one  is  tempted  to 
say  the  most  genuine  realistic  novel  ever  writ- 
281 


IN  THE  WORKSHOP  OF  ZOLA 

ten.  Its  grey  colouring,  its  daylight  atmosphere, 
its  marvellous  description  of  Fontainebleau,  of 
masquerades,  of  dinners  and  duels  in  high  and 
low  life,  its  lifelike  characters,  were  for  Zola 
a  treasure-trove.  He  took  Rosanette,  the  most 
lifelike  cocotte  in  fiction,  and  transformed  her 
into  Nana,  into  a  symbol  of  destruction.  Zola 
saw  the  world  through  melodramatic  eyes. 

Mr.  Massis  has  noted  Zola's  method  of  lit 
erary  travail,  the  formation  of  his  style,  the 
labour  of  style,  the  art  of  writing,  the  pain  of 
writing,  and  his  infinitely  painstaking  manner 
of  accumulating  heaps  of  notes,  and  building  his 
book  from  them.  The  Massis  study,  the  most 
complete  of  its  kind,  may  interest  the  student, 
not  alone  of  Zola,  but  of  literature  in  general. 
Not,  however,  as  a  model,  for  Zola,  with  all  his 
tiresome  preparations,  never  constructed  an  ideal 
book  —  rather,  to  put  it  the  other  way,  no  one 
of  his  books  reveals  ideal  construction.  The 
multiplicity  of  details,  of  descriptions  weary  the 
reader.  A  coarse  spirit  his,  he  revelled  in  scenes 
of  lust,  bloodshed,  vileness,  and  cruelty. 

His  people,  with  a  few  exceptions,  are  but 
agitated  silhouettes.  You  close  your  eyes  after 
reading  La  Bete  Humaine  and  think  of  Eugene 
Sue,  a  Sue  of  1880.  Yet  a  master  of  broad, 
symphonic  descriptions.  There  is  a  certain  re 
semblance  to  Richard  Wagner;  indeed,  he  pat 
terned  after  Wagner  in  his  use  of  the  musical 
symbol:  there  is  a  leading  motive  in  each  of 
Zola's  novels.  And  like  Wagner  he  was  a  senti- 
282 


IN  THE  WORKSHOP   OF  ZOLA 

mental  lover  of  mankind  and  a  hater  of  all 
forms  of  injustice. 

From  the  conception  of  the  work,  with  its 
general  notes  on  its  nature,  its  movement,  its 
physiology,  its  determination,  its  first  sketches 
of  the  personages,  the  milieu  —  he  was  an  ar 
dent  adherent  of  Taine  in  this  particular  —  the 
occupations  of  the  characters,  the  summary  plan 
with  the  accumulated  details,  thence  to  the 
writing,  the  entire  method  is  exposed  in  this 
ingenious  and  entertaining  book  of  Massis.  He 
has  no  illusions  about  Zola's  originality  or  the 
destiny  of  his  works.  Zola  has  long  ceased  to 
count  in  literary  evolution. 

But  Emile  Zola  is  in  the  Pantheon. 

ZOLA  AS   BEST   SELLER 

The  publication  of  the  number  of  books  sold 
by  a  young  American  novelist  previous  to  his 
untimely  taking  off  does  not  prove  that  a  writer 
has  to  be  alive  to  be  a  best  seller.  If  that  were 
the  case,  what  about  Dickens  and  Thackeray 
as  exceptions?  The  publishers  of  Dickens  say 
that  their  sales  of  his  novels  in  1910  were  25 
per  cent  more  than  in  1909,  and  750,0x30  copies 
were  sold  in  1911.  In  many  instances  a  dead 
author  is  worth  more  than  a  live  one.  With 
Zola  this  is  not  precisely  so,  though  his  books 
still  sell;  the  only  interregnum  being  the  time 
when  the  Dreyfus  affair  was  agitating  France. 
Then  the  source  of  Zola's  income  dried  up  like  a 
283 


IN  THE  WORKSHOP  OF  ZOLA 

rain  pond  in  a  desert.  Later  on  he  had  his 
revenge. 

The  figures  for  the  sale  of  Zola  up  to  the 
end  of  1911  are  very  instructive.  His  collected 
works  number  forty-eight  volumes.  Of  the 
Rougon-Macquart  series  1,964,000  have  been 
sold;  other  novels,  764,000;  essays  and  various 
works  bring  the  total  to  2,750,000,  approxi 
mately.  In  a  word,  a  few  years  hence  Zola  will 
easily  pass  3,000,000.  Nana  still  holds  its  own 
as  the  leader  of  the  list,  215,000;  La  Terre,  162,- 
ooo ;  L'Assommoir,  162,000.  This  would  seem 
to  prove  what  the  critics  of  the  French  novel 
ist  have  asserted:  that  books  in  which  coarse 
themes  are  treated  with  indescribable  coarse 
ness  have  sold  and  continue  to  sell  better  than 
his  finer  work,  L'CEuvre,  for  example,  which 
has  only  achieved  71,000.  But  L'Assommoir  is 
Zola  at  his  best;  besides,  it  is  not  such  a  vile 
book  as  La  Terre.  And  then  how  about  La 
Debacle,  which  has  229,000  copies  to  its  credit? 
The  answer  is  that  patriotism  played  a  greater 
r61e  in  the  fortune  of  this  work  than  did  vulgar 
curiosity  in  the  case  of  the  others.  Another 
popular  book,  Germinal,  shows  132,000. 

On  the  appearance  of  La  Terre  in  1887  (it 
was  first  published  as  a  feuilleton  in  Gil  Bias, 
from  May  28  to  September  15),  five  of  Zola's 
disciples,  Paul  Bonnetain,  J.  H.  Rosny,  Lucien 
Descaves,  Paul  Margueritte,  and  Gustave  Gui- 
ches,  made  a  public  protest  which  is  rather 
comical  if  you  remember  that  several  of  these 
284 


IN  THE  WORKSHOP  OF  ZOLA 

writers  have  not  turned  out  Sunday-school  lit 
erature;  Paul  Margueritte  in  particular  has  in 
L'Or  and  an  earlier  work  beaten  his  master  at 
the  game.  But  a  reaction  from  Zola's  natural 
ism  was  bound  to  come.  As  Remy  de  Gour- 
mont  wrote:  " There  has  been  no  question  of 
forming  a  party  or  issuing  orders;  no  crusade 
was  organised;  it  is  individually  that  we  have 
separated  ourselves,  horror  stricken,  from  a  lit 
erature  the  baseness  of  which  made  us  sick." 
Havelock  Ellis,  otherwise  an  admirer  of  the 
genius  of  Emile  Zola,  has  said  that  his  soul 
"seems  to  have  been  starved  at  the  centre  and 
to  have  encamped  at  the  sensory  periphery." 
Blunt  George  Saintsbury  calls  Zola  the  "nat 
uralist  Zeus,  Jove  the  Dirt-Compeller,"  and  adds 
that  as  Zola  misses  the  two  lasting  qualities  of 
literature,  style,  and  artistic  presentation  of 
matter,  he  is  doomed;  for  "the  first  he  prob 
ably  could  not  have  attained,  except  in  a  few 
passages,  if  he  would;  the  second  he  has  delib 
erately  rejected,  and  so  the  mother  of  dead 
dogs  awaits  him  sooner  or  later."  Yet  Zola 
lives  despite  these  predictions,  as  the  above 
figures  show,  notwithstanding  his  loquacity  in 
regard  to  themes  that  should  be  tacenda  to 
every  writer. 

But  in  this  matter  of  forbidden  subjects  Zola 
is  regarded  by  the  present  generation  as  a  trifle 
old-fashioned.  When  alive  he  was  grouped  with 
Aretino  and  the  Marquis  de  Sade,  or  with  Restif 
de  la  Bretonne.  To-day  Paris  has  not  only  Paul 

285 


IN  THE  WORKSHOP  OF  ZOLA 

Margueritte,  who  when  writing  in  conjunction 
with  his  brother  Victor  gave  much  promise,  but 
also  Octave  Mirbeau.  With  Zola,  the  newer 
men  assert  that  their  work  makes  for  morality, 
exposing  as  it  does  public  and  private  abuses, 
an  excuse  as  classic  as  Aristophanes. 

In  1893  the  figures  for  the  principal  novels 
of  Zola  stood  thus:  Nana,  160,000;  L'Assom- 
moir,  127,000;  La  Debacle,  143,000;  Germinal, 
88,000;  La  Terre,  100,000;  La  Bete  Humaine, 
83,000;  the  same  number  for  Le  Reve;  Pot- 
Bouille,  82,000;  whereas  L'CEuvre  only  counted 
55,000;  La  Conquete  de  Plassans,  25,000;  La 
Curee,  36,000,  and  La  Joie  de  Vivre,  44,000. 
La  Terre,  then,  the  most  unmentionable  story 
of  them  all,  has  jumped  since  1893  to  the  end 
of  1911  from  100,000  to  215,000,  whereas 
L'CEuvre  moved  only  from  55,000  to  71,000  in 
fourteen  years.  But  a  Vulgarian  can  under 
stand  La  Terre  while  L'CEuvre  would  be  abso 
lutely  undecipherable  to  him. 

Zola  always  knew  his  market;  even  knew  it 
after  Dreyfus  had  intervened.  Of  the  series  called 
Les  Trois  Villes,  Rome  is  the  best  seller,  121,000; 
and  it  is  as  profound  a  vilification  of  the  Eternal 
City  as  was  La  Terre  of  the  French  peasants,  as 
Pot-Bouille  of  the  French  bourgeois.  Indeed, 
all  Zola  reads  like  the  frenzied  attack  of  a  pessi 
mist  to  whom  his  native  land  is  a  hideous  night 
mare  and  its  inhabitants  criminals  or  mad  folk. 
His  influence  on  a  younger  generation  of  writers, 
especially  in  America,  has  been  baneful,  and  he 
286 


IN  THE  WORKSHOP  OF  ZOLA 

has  done  much  with  his  exuberant,  rhapsodical 
style  to  further  the  moon-madness  of  socialism; 
of  a  belief  in  a  coming  earthly  paradise,  where 
no  one  will  labour  (except  the  captive  million 
aires)  and  from  whose  skies  roasted  pigeons  will 
fall  straightway  into  the  mouths  of  its  foolish 
inhabitants. 

Zola  as  a  money-maker  need  not  be  consid 
ered  now;  his  gains  were  enormous;  suffice  to 
say  that  he  was  paid  large  sums  for  the  serial 
rights.  Nana,  in  Voltaire,  brought  20,000  francs; 
Pot-Bouille,  in  Gaulois,  30,000  francs;  Bonheur 
des  Dames,  La  Joie  de  Vivre,  Germinal,  L'OEuvre, 
La  Terre,  in  Gil  Bias,  each  20,000  francs;  L'Ar- 
gent,  in  the  same  journal,  30,000  francs;  Le 
Reve,  in  the  Revue  Illustree,  25,000  francs;  La 
B£te  Humaine,  in  Vie  Populaire,  25,000  francs; 
La  Debacle,  in  the  same,  30,000  francs,  and 
Docteur  Pascal  in  Revue  Hebdomadaire,  35,000 
francs.  That  amounts  to  about  300,000  francs. 
Each  novel  cost  from  20,000  to  25,000  francs 
for  rights  of  reproduction,  and  to  all  this  must 
be  added  about  500,000  francs  for  the  theatrical 
works,  making  a  total  of  1,600,000  francs.  And 
it  was  in  1894  that  these  figures  were  compiled 
by  Antoine  Laporte  in  his  book  on  Naturalism, 
which  contains  a  savage  attack  on  Zolaism. 
Truly,  then,  Zola  may  be  fairly  called  one  of  the 
best  sellers  among  all  authors,  dead  or  living. 


287 


IN  1 88 1  Turgenieff  gave  Tolstoy  a  book  by  a 
young  Frenchman,  telling  him  that  he  would 
find  it  amusing.  This  book  was  La  Maison 
Tellier.  Tolstoy  revolted  at  the  theme,  but 
could  not  deny  the  freshness  and  power  of  the 
author.  He  found  Maupassant  "deficient  in 
the  moral  sense";  yet  he  was  interested  and 
followed  the  progress  of  Flaubert's  pupil.  When 
Une  Vie  appeared,  the  Russian  novelist  pro 
nounced  it  incomparably  the  best  work  of  its 
author  —  perhaps  the  best  French  novel  since 
Hugo's  Les  Miserables.  He  wrote  this  in  an 
article  entitled  Guy  de  Maupassant  and  the 
Art  of  Fiction.  It  was  doubtless  the  Norman's 
clear,  robust  vision  that  appealed  to  Tolstoy, 
who,  at  that  period  was  undergoing  a  change 
of  heart;  else  how  could  he  call  Les  Miserables 
the  greatest  novel  of  France,  he  the  writer  of 
Anna  Karenina  —  the  antipodes  of  that  windy 
apotheosis  of  vapid  humanitarianism,  the  char 
acteristic  trait  of  Hugo's  epic  of  pity  and  un 
reality. 

But  Maupassant  affected  Tolstoy  as  he  had 
affected  Turgenieff.  Guy  has  told  us  of  his  first 
288 


A  STUDY  OF  DE  MAUPASSANT 

meeting  with  the  latter,  an  artist  superior  to 
Tolstoy.  "The  first  time  I  saw  Turgenieff  was 
at  Gustave  Flaubert's  —  a  door  opened;  a  giant 
came  in,  a  giant  with  a  silver  head,  as  they 
would  say  in  a  fairy  tale."  This  must  have  been 
in  1876,  for  in  a  letter  dated  January  24,  1877, 
Turgenieff  writes:  "Poor  Maupassant  is  losing 
all  his  hair.  He  came  to  see  me.  He  is  as  nice 
as  ever,  but  very  ugly  just  at  present."  In 
1880  the  young  man  published  a  volume  of 
poetry,  Des  Vers.  He  was  thirty  years  old 
(born  August  5,  1850). 

The  literary  apprenticeship  of  Guy  to  Gus 
tave  Flaubert  is  a  thrice-told  tale,  and  signifies 
only  this:  If  the  pupil  had  not  been  richly  en 
dowed  all  the  lessons  of  Flaubert  would  have 
availed  him  little.  Perhaps  the  anecdote  has 
been  overdone;  Maupassant  has  related  it  in 
the  preface  to  Pierre  et  Jean,  and  in  the  in 
troduction  to  the  George  Sand-Flaubert  corre 
spondence  —  now  at  the  head  of  the  edition  of 
Bouvard  et  Pecuchet.  There  are  letters  of 
Flaubert  to  his  disciple  full  of  his  explosive 
good  nature,  big  heart,  irascibility  and  generous 
outpouring  on  the  subject  of  his  art.  The  thing 
that  surprises  a  close  student  of  this  episode 
and  its  outcome  is  that  Maupassant  was  in 
reality  so  unlike  his  master.  And  when  I  fur 
ther  insist  that  the  younger  man  appropriated 
whole  scenes  from  Flaubert  for  his  longer  stories, 
especially  from  L'Education  Sentimentale,  I  feel 
that  I  am  uttering  a  paradox. 
289 


A  STUDY  OF  DE  MAUPASSANT 

What  I  mean  is  this:  Maupassant's  tempera 
ment  was  utterly  different  from  Flaubert's. 
They  were  both  prosecuted  for  certain  things 
they  wrote,  Guy  for  a  poem  in  1880,  at  Es- 
tampes;  there  had  been  a  detraque  nervous  sys 
tem  in  both  cases.  Yet,  similar  in  ideals  and 
physical  peculiarities  as  were  these  two  men, 
there  was  a  profound  psychical  gulf  between 
their  temperaments.  Flaubert  was  a  great  ge 
nius,  a  path  breaker,  a  philosophic  poet,  and 
the  author  of  La  Tentation  de  St.  Antoine, 
the  nearest  approach  that  France  can  show  to 
a  prose  epic,  and  a  book  of  beauty  and  origi 
nality.  Maupassant  was  a  great  talent,  and  a 
growing  one  when  disease  cut  him  down.  He 
imitated  the  externals  of  Flaubert,  his  irony, 
his  vivid  power  of  picture-making;  even  his 
pessimism  he  developed  —  though  that  was  per 
sonal,  as  we  shall  soon  see.  And  yet  his  work 
is  utterly  unlike  Flaubert,  probably  unlike  what 
Flaubert  had  hoped  for  —  the  old  man  died  in 
1 88 1  and  therefore  did  not  live  to  enjoy 
Maupassant  in  full  bloom.  If  it  did  not  sound 
quite  heretical  I  should  be  tempted  to  assert 
that  the  writer  Maupassant  most  patterned 
after,  was  Prosper  Merimee,  an  artist  detested 
by  Flaubert  because  of  his  hard  style.  It  is  this 
precise  style  that  Maupassant  exhibits  but 
coupled  with  a  clarity,  an  ease,  and  a  grace  that 
Merimee  could  not  boast.  Of  Flaubert's  har 
monious  and  imaginatively  coloured  manner, 
Maupassant  shows  no  trace  in  his  six  novels 
and  his  two  hundred  and  odd  tales. 
2  go 


A  STUDY  OF  DE  MAUPASSANT 

Maupassant  was  not  altogether  faithful  to 
Flaubert's  injunctions  regarding  the  publica 
tion  of  his  early  attempts.  He  made  many  se 
cret  flights  under  different  pen-names,  though 
Boule  de  Suif  was  the  first  prose  signed  by  him. 
It  appeared  in  Les  Soirees  de  Medan,  and  its 
originality  quite  outshone  the  more  solid  quali 
ties  of  Zola's  L'Attaque  au  Moulin,  and  a  real 
istic  tale  of  Huysmans's,  Sac  au  dos.  It  was  this 
knapsack  of  story,  nevertheless,  that  opened  the 
eyes  of  both  Zola  and  Goncourt  to  the  genuine 
realism  of  Huysmans  as  opposed  to  the  more 
human  but  also  more  sentimental  surface  realism 
of  Maupassant.  Huysmans  proved  himself  de 
void  of  the  story- telling  gift,  of  dramatic  power; 
yet  he  has,  if  compared  to  Maupassant,  without 
an  iota  of  doubt,  the  more  vivid  vision  of  the  two; 
"the  intensest  vision  of  the  modern  world,"  says 
Havelock  Ellis.  Pictorial,  not  imaginative  vision, 
be  it  understood.  In  his  mystic  latter-day  rhap 
sodies  it  is  the  realist  who  sees,  the  realist  who 
makes  those  poignant,  image-breeding  phrases. 
Take  up  Maupassant  and  in  his  best  tales  and 
novels,  such  as  La  Maison  Tellier,  Boule  de  Suif, 
Une  Vie,  Fort  Comme  la  Mort,  to  mention  a  few, 
you  will  be  surprised  at  the  fluidity,  the  artful 
devices  to  elude  the  harshness  of  reality,  the 
pessimistic  poetry  that  suffuses  his  pages  after 
reading  Huysmans's  immitigable  exposition  of 
the  ugly  and  his  unflinching  attitude  before  the 
unpleasant.  And  Huysmans's  point  of  departure 
is  seldom  from  an  idea;  facts  furnish  him  with 
an  adequate  spring-board.  Maupassant  is  more 
291 


A  STUDY  OF  DE  MAUPASSANT 

lyric  in  tone  and  texture.  Edmond  de  Goncourt, 
jealous  of  the  success  of  the  newcomer,  wrote  in 
his  diary  that  Maupassant  was  an  admirable 
conteur,  but  a  great  writer,  never.  Zola  ad 
mitted  to  a  few  intimates  that  Guy  was  not 
the  realist  that  Huysmans  was.  All  of  which 
is  interesting,  but  proves  nothing  except  that 
Maupassant  wrote  a  marvellous  collection  of 
short  stories,  real,  hyphenated  short-stories,  as 
Mr.  Brander  Matthews  makes  the  delicate  dis 
tinction,  while  Huysmans  did  not. 

Edouard  Maynial's  La  Vie  et  1'CEuvre  de 
Guy  de  Maupassant  is  the  most  recent  of  the 
biographical  studies  devoted  to  our  subject, 
though  Baron  Albert  Lumbroso,  who  escapes  by 
a  single  letter  from  being  confounded  with  the 
theory-ridden  Turin  psychiatrist,  has  given  us, 
with  the  approval  of  Guy's  mother,  the  definitive 
study  of  Maupassant's  malady  and  death.  It  is 
frequently  quoted  by  Maynial ;  there  is  a  careful 
study  of  it  which  appeared  in  Mercure  de  France, 
June,  1905,  by  Louis  Thomas.  And  there  is  that 
charming  volume,  Amitie  amoureuse,  in  which 
Guy  is  said  to  figure  as  the  Philippe,  by  Henri 
Amic  and  Madame  Lecomte  du  Nouy.  Here 
we  get  another  Maupassant,  not  the  taureau 
triste  of  Taine,  but  a  delightful,  sweet-tem 
pered,  unselfish,  and  altogether  lovable  fel 
low.  What  was  the  cause  of  his  downfall? 
Dissipation  ?  Mental  overwork  —  which  is  the 
same  thing?  Disease?  Maynial,  Lumbroso, 
and  Thomas  offer  us  such  a  variety  of  docu- 
292 


A  STUDY  OF  DE  MAUPASSANT 

ments  that  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the 
determining  element.  From  1880  to  his  death 
in  1893  Guy  de  Maupassant  was  "a  candidate 
for  general  paralysis."  These  are  the  words  of 
his  doctor,  later  approved  by  Doctor  Blanche, 
to  whose  sanitarium  in  Paris  he  was  taken, 
January  7,  1893. 

The  father  of  Guy  was  Gustave  de  Maupas 
sant,  of  an  ancient  Lorraine  family.  This  fam 
ily  was  noble.  His  mother  was  of  Norman 
extraction,  Laure  de  Poittevin,  the  sister  of 
Alfred  de  Poittevin,  Flaubert's  dearest  friend, 
a  poet  who  died  young.  There  is  no  truth  in 
the  gossip  that  Guy  was  the  son  of  Flaubert. 
Flaubert  loved  both  the  Poittevins;  hence  his 
lively  interest  in  Guy.  There  was  a  younger 
brother,  Herve  de  Maupassant,  who  died  of 
a  mental  disorder.  His  daughter,  Simone,  is 
the  legatee  of  her  uncle.  The  marriage  of 
the  elder  Maupassants  proved  a  failure.  They 
are  both  dead  now,  and  the  subject  may  be 
discussed  to  the  point  of  admitting  that  the 
father  was  not  a  domestic  man;  Guy  inherited 
his  taste  for  Bohemian  life,  and  Madame  Laure 
de  Maupassant,  after  separating  from  her  hus 
band,  was  subject  to  nervous  crises  in  which 
she  attempted  her  life  by  swallowing  laudanum 
and  by  strangling  herself  with  her  own  hair. 
She  was  rescued  both  times,  but  she  was  an 
invalid  to  the  last.  A  loving  mother,  she  over 
looked  the  education  of  Guy,  and  let  it  be  said 
that  no  happier  child  ever  lived.  His  early 

293 


A  STUDY  OF  DE  MAUPASSANT 

days  were  passed  at  Etretat,  at  the  Villa  Ver- 
guies,  and  generally  in  the  open  air. 

The  future  writer  adored  the  sea;  he  has 
written  many  tales  of  the  water,  of  yachts 
and  river  sports.  He  went  to  the  seminary  at 
Yvetot  and  the  lyceum  of  Rouen,  but  his  edu 
cation  was  desultory,  his  reading  principally  of 
his  own  selection  —  like  most  men  of  individual 
character.  He  was  a  farceur,  fond  of  mystifica 
tions,  of  rough  practical  jokes,  of  horseplay. 
His  physique  was  more  Flemish  than  French  — 
a  deep  chest,  broad  shoulders,  heavy  muscular 
arms  and  legs,  a  small  head,  a  bull-neck.  He 
looked  like  the  mate  of  a  deep-sea  ship  rather 
than  a  literary  man.  Add  to  this  a  craze  for  row 
ing,  canoeing,  swimming,  boxing,  fencing,  and 
running.  An  all-round  athlete,  as  the  phrase 
goes,  Guy,  it  is  related,  once  paid  a  hulking 
chap  to  let  himself  be  kicked.  So  hard  was 
Guy's  kick,  done  in  an  experimental  humour, 
that  the  victim  became  enraged  and  knocked 
the  kicker  off  his  pins.  Flaubert,  the  apostle  of 
the  immobile,  objected.  Too  many  flirtations, 
too  much  exercise !  he  admonishingly  cried.  A 
writer  must  cultivate  repose. 

In  sooth  Maupassant  went  a  terrific  pace. 
He  abused  his  constitution  from  the  beginning, 
seemingly  tormented  by  seven  restless  devils. 
He  spent  five  hours  a  day  at  his  office  in  the 
Ministry,  in  the  afternoon  he  rowed  on  the 
Seine,  in  the  evening  he  wrote.  After  he  had  re 
signed  as  a  bureaucrat  he  worked  from  seven  un- 
294 


A  STUDY  OF  DE  MAUPASSANT 

til  twelve  every  morning,  no  matter  the  excesses 
of  the  previous  night;  the  afternoon  he  spent 
on  the  river,  retiring  very  late.  "Toujours  les 
femmes,  petit  cochon,"  wrote  Flaubert  in  1876, 
"il  faut  travailler."  But  it  was  precisely  work 
that  helped  to  kill  the  man.  Those  six  pages 
a  day,  while  they  seldom  showed  erasures,  were 
carefully  written,  and  not  until  after  much 
thought.  Guy  was  the  type  of  the  apparently 
spontaneous  writers.  His  manuscripts  are  free 
from  the  interlineations  of  Flaubert.  He  wrote 
at  one  jet;  but  there  was  elaborate  mental  prep 
aration.  Toward  the  last  began  the  ether  in 
halations,  the  chloroform,  hasheesh,  the  ab 
sinthe,  cocaine,  and  the  "odour  symphonies" 
Huysmans's  des  Esseintes,  and  his  symphonic 
perfume  sprays  were  not  altogether  the  result 
of  invention.  On  his  yacht  Bel  Ami  Guy  never 
ceased  his  daily  travail.  It  was  Taine  who 
called  him  un  taureau  triste.  Paul  Bourget  re 
lates  that  when  he  told  Maupassant  of  this  epi 
gram,  he  calmly  replied:  "Better  a  bull  than 
an  ox." 

His  output  —  as  they  say  in  publishing  circles 
—  was  breath-catching.  It  is  whispered  that  he 
worked  all  the  better  after  a  "  hard  night."  Now 
there  can  be  but  one  end  to  such  an  expenditure 
of  nervous  energy,  and  that  end  came,  not  sud 
denly,  but  with  the  treacherous,  creeping  ap 
proach  of  paralysis.  "Literary"  criticism  of 
the  Nordau  type  is  usually  a  foolish  thing;  yet 
in  Maupassant's  case  one  does  not  need  to  be 

295 


A  STUDY  OF  DE  MAUPASSANT 

a  skilled  psychiatrist  to  follow  and  note  the 
gradual  palsy  of  the  writer's  higher  centres. 
Such  stories  as  Qui  Sait  ?  Lui,  Le  Horla  —  a  ter 
rifying  conception  that  beats  Poe  on  his  own 
chosen  field  —  Fou,  Un  Fou,  and  several  others 
show  the  nature  of  his  malady.  Guy  de  Mau 
passant  came  fairly  by  his  cracked  nervous  con 
stitution,  and  instead  of  dissipation,  mental 
and  physical,  being  the  determining  causes  of 
his  shattered  health,  they  were  really  the  out 
come  of  an  inherited  predisposition  to  all  that 
is  self-destructive.  The  French  alienists  called 
it  une  heredite  chargee.  (No  doubt  the  dread 
Spirochaeta  pallida.) 

He  never  relaxed  his  diligence,  even  writing 
criticism.  He  saluted  the  literary  debuts  of 
Paul  Hervieu  and  Edouard  Rod  in  an  article 
which  appeared  in  Gil  Bias.  At  the  time  of  his 
death  he  was  contemplating  an  extensive  study 
of  Turgenieff.  Edmond  de  Goncourt  did  not 
like  him,  suspecting  him  of  irreverence  because 
of  some  words  Guy  had  written  in  the  preface 
to  Pierre  et  Jean  about  complicated  exotic  vo 
cabularies;  meaning  the  Goncourts,  of  course. 
It  is  to  be  believed  that  Flaubert  also  had  some 
quiet  fun  with  the  brothers  and  with  Zola  regard 
ing  their  mania  for  note  taking;  read  Bouvard  et 
Pecuchet  for  confirmation  of  this  idea  of  mine. 

Maupassant  was  paid  one  franc  a  line  for  his 
novels  in  the  periodicals,  and  500  francs  for 
the  newspaper  rights  of  publication  only;  good 
prices  twenty-five  years  ago  in  Paris. 
296 


A  STUDY  OF  DE  MAUPASSANT 

His  annual  income  was  about  28,000  to  35,000 
francs,  and  it  kept  up  for  at  least  ten  years. 
A  table  shows  us  that  to  December,  1891,  the 
sale  of  his  books  was  as  follows:  short  stories, 
169,000;  novels,  180,000;  travel,  24,000;  in  all 
373,000  volumes.  Maupassant  was  even  for 
these  days  of  swollen  figures  a  big  "seller," 
His  mother  had  an  income  of  5,000  francs,  but 
she  far  excelled  the  amount  in  her  living  ex 
penses.  Guy  was  an  admirable  son  —  tender, 
thoughtful,  and  generous.  He  made  her  an  al 
lowance,  and  at  his  death  left  her  in  comfort, 
if  not  actually  wealthy.  She  died  at  Nice,  De 
cember  8,  1904,  his  father  surviving  him  until 
1899. 

And  that  death  was  achieved  by  the  most 
hideous  route  —  insanity.  Restless,  travelling 
incessantly,  fearful  of  darkness,  of  his  own 
shadow,  he  was  like  an  Oriental  magician  who 
had  summoned  malignant  spirits  from  outer 
space  only  to  be  destroyed  by  them.  Not  in 
Corsica  or  Sicily,  in  Africa  nor  the  south  of 
France,  did  Guy  fight  off  his  rapidly  growing 
disease.  He  worked  hard,  he  drank  hard,  but 
to  no  avail;  the  blackness  of  his  brain  increased. 
Melancholia  and  irritability  supervened;  he 
spelled  words  wrong,  he  quarrelled  with  his 
friends,  he  instituted  a  lawsuit  against  a  New 
York  newspaper,  The  Star;  then  the  persecu 
tion  craze,  folie  des  grandeurs,  frenzy.  The 
case  was  "classic"  from  the  beginning,  even  to 
the  dilated  pupils  of  his  eyes,  as  far  back  as 
297 


A  STUDY  OF  DE  MAUPASSANT 

1880.  The  ist  of  January,  1892,  he  had  prom 
ised  to  spend  with  his  mother  at  Villa  de  Ra- 
venelles,  at  Nice.  But  he  went,  instead,  against 
his  mother's  wishes,  to  Ste. -Marguerite  in  com 
pany  with  two  sisters,  society  women,  one  of 
them  said  to  have  been  the  heroine  of  Notre 
Cceur. 

The  next  day  he  arrived,  his  features  discom 
posed,  and  in  a  state  of  great  mental  excitement. 
He  was  tearful  and  soon  left  for  Cannes  with 
his  valet,  Francois.  What  passed  during  the 
night  was  never  exactly  known,  except  that 
Guy  attempted  suicide  by  shooting,  and  with 
a  paper-knife.  The  knife  inflicted  a  slight 
wound;  the  pistol  contained  blank  cartridges  — 
Francois  had  suspected  his  master's  mood,  and 
told  the  world  later  of  it  in  his  simple  loving 
memoirs  —  and  his  forehead  was  slightly  burned. 
Some  months  previous  he  had  told  Doctor 
Fremy  that  between  madness  and  death  he 
would  not  hesitate;  a  lucid  moment  had  shown 
him  his  fate,  and  he  sought  death.  After  a 
week,  during  which  two  stout  sailors  of  his 
yacht,  Bel  Ami,  guarded  him,  as  he  sadly  walked 
on  the  beach  regarding  with  tear-stained  cheeks 
his  favourite  boat,  he  was  taken  to  Passy,  to 
Doctor  Blanche's  institution.  One  of  his  ex 
amining  physicians  there  was  Doctor  Franklin 
Grout,  who  later  married  Flaubert's  niece, 
Caroline  Commanville. 

July  6,  1893,  Maupassant  died,  as  a  lamp  is 
extinguished  for  lack  of  oil.  But  the  year  he 
298 


A  STUDY  OF  DE  MAUPASSANT 

spent  at  the  asylum  was  wretched;  he  became 
a  mere  machine,  and  perhaps  the  only  pleasure 
he  experienced  was  the  hallucination  of  bands 
of  black  butterflies  that  seemed  to  sweep  across 
his  room.  Monsieur  Maynial  does  not  tell  of 
the  black  butterflies,  the  truth  of  which  I  can 
vouch  for,  as  I  heard  the  story  from  Lassalle, 
the  French  barytone,  a  friend  of  Maupassant's. 

It  may  be  interesting  to  the  curious  to  learn 
that  the  good-hearted,  brave  heroine  of  Boule 
de  Suif  was  a  certain  Adrienne  Legay  of  Rouen, 
and  that  she  heartily  reprobated  the  writer  for 
giving  her  story  to  the  world.  She  even  went 
so  far  as  to  say  that  Guy  did  it  in  a  spirit  of 
revenge.  Madame  Laure  de  Maupassant  made 
inquiries  about  the  patriotic  little  sinner  so  as 
to  help  her.  It  was  too  late.  She  had  died  in 
extreme  poverty.  The  heroine  of  Mademoiselle 
Fifi  was  a  brunette,  Rachel  by  name;  the  hero 
was  a  young  German  officer,  Baron  William 
d'Eyrick. 

Would  Maupassant  have  reached  the  sunlit 
heights,  as  Tolstoy  believed?  Who  may  say? 
Truth  lies  not  at  the  bottom  of  a  well,  but  in 
suffering;  suffering  alone  reveals  the  truth  of 
himself,  of  his  soul  to  man,  and  Guy  had  suf 
fered  as  few;  he  had  passed  into  the  Inferno 
that  later  Nietzsche  entered,  passed  into  though 
not  through  it.  Turgenieff,  for  whom  Guy  en 
tertained  a  profound  regard,  had  influenced 
him  more  than  he,  with  his  doglike  fidelity  for 
Flaubert,  would  have  cared  to  acknowledge. 
299 


A  STUDY  OF  DE  MAUPASSANT 

Paul  Bourget  gives  us  chapter  and  verse  for 
this  statement;  furthermore,  the  same  author 
ity,  has  described  —  in  his  Etudes  et  Portraits 

—  the  enormous  travail  of  Maupassant  in  pur 
suit  of  style  —  he,  seemingly,  the  most  spon 
taneous  writer  of  his  generation.     His  books  of 
fend,  delight,  startle,  and  edify  thousands  of 
readers.    That  they  have  done  absolute  harm 
we  are  not  prepared  to  say;  book  wickedness  is, 
after  all,  an  academic,  not  a  vital  question.     If 
all  the  wicked  books  that  have  seen  the  light 
of  publication  had  wrought  the  evil  predicted 
of  them  the  earth  would  be  an  abomination. 
In  reality,  we  discuss  with  varying  shades  of 
enthusiasm  or  detestation  such  frank  literature 

—  naturally  when  it  is  literature  —  and  after 
the  hullabaloo  of  the  moral  bell-boys  has  ceased, 
the  book  is  quietly  forgotten  on  its  shelf.     Flau 
bert  once  wrote  of  the  vast  fund  of  indifference 
possessed  by  society.     Dramas,  books,  pictures, 
statues  have  never  ruined  our  overmoral  world. 
The  day  for  such  things  —  if  there  ever  was 
such  a  day  —  has  passed.     Besides,  among  the 
people  of  most  nations,  the  hatred  of  art  and 
literature  is  pushed  to  the  point  of  lecturing 
boastfully  about  that  same  hatred. 


300 


XVII 
PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 

ALTHOUGH  he  has  been  dead  since  October 
24,  1898,  critical  battles  are  still  fought  over 
the  artistic  merits  of  Puvis  de  Chavannes. 
Whether  you  agree  with  Huysmans  and  call  this 
mural  painter  a  pasticheur  of  the  Italian  Prim 
itives,  or  else  the  greatest  artist  in  decoration 
since  Paolo  Veronese,  depends  much  on  your 
critical  temperament.  There  are  many  to  whom 
Henri  Martin's  gorgeous  colour  —  really  the 
methods  of  Monet  applied  to  vast  spaces  —  or 
the  blazing  originality  of  Albert  Besnard  make 
more  intimate  appeal  than  the  pallid  poetry, 
solemn  rhythms,  and  faded  moonlit  tonal  gamut 
of  Puvis.  Because  the  names  of  Gustave  Mo- 
reau  and  Puvis  were  often  associated,  Huys 
mans,  ab  irato,  cries  against  the  "obsequious 
heresy"  of  the  conjunction,  forgetting  that  the 
two  men  were  friends.  Marius  Vauchon,  de 
spite  his  excessive  admiration  for  Puvis  has 
rendered  a  service  to  his  memory  in  his  study, 
because  he  has  shown  us  the  real,  not  the  leg 
endary  man.  With  Vauchon,  we  are  far  from 
Huysmans,  and  his  succinct,  but  disagreeable, 
epigram:  C'est  un  vieux  rigaudon  qui  s'essaie 
dans  le  requiem.  The  truth  is,  that  some 
301 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 

idealists  were  disappointed  to  find  Puvis  to  be 
a  sane,  healthy,  solidly  built  man,  a  bon  vivant 
in  the  best  sense  of  the  phrase,  without  a  sug 
gestion  of  the  morbid,  vapouring  pontiff  or 
haughty  Olympian.  Personally  he  was  not  in 
the  least  like  his  art,  a  crime  that  sentimental 
persons  seldom  forgive.  A  Burgundian  —  born 
at  Lyons,  December  14,  1824  —  he  possessed  all 
the  characteristics  of  his  race.  Asceticism  was 
the  last  quality  to  seek  in  him.  A  good  din 
ner  with  old  vintage,  plenty  of  comrades,  above 
all  the  society  of  his  beloved  Princess  Can- 
tacuzene,  whose  love  of  her  husband  was  the 
one  romance  in  his  career:  these,  and  twelve 
hours'  toil  a  day  in  his  atelier  made  up  the 
long  life  of  this  distinguished  painter.  He  lived 
for  a  half-century  between  his  two  ateliers,  on 
the  Place  Pigalle,  and  at  Neuilly.  Notwith 
standing  his  arduous  combat  with  the  Institute 
and  public  indifference,  his  cannot  be  called  an 
unhappy  existence.  He  had  his  art,  in  the 
practice  of  which  he  was  a  veritable  fanatic;  he 
was  rich  through  inheritance,  and  he  was  happy 
in  his  love;  affluence,  art,  love,  a  triad  to  attain, 
for  which  most  men  yearn,  came  to  Puvis.  Yet 
the  gadfly  of  ambition  was  in  his  flesh.  He  was 
a  visionary,  even  a  recluse,  like  his  friend  Mo- 
reau,  but  a  fighter  for  his  ideas;  and  those  ideas 
have  shown  not  only  French  artists,  but  the 
entire  world,  the  path  back  to  true  mural  tradi 
tion.  It  is  not  an  exaggeration  to  say  that 
Puvis  created  modern  decorative  art. 
302 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 

His  father  was  chief  engineer  of  mines,  a 
strong-willed,  successful  man.  Like  father,  like 
son,  was  true  in  this  case,  though  the  young 
De  Chavannes,  after  some  opposition,  elected 
painting  as  his  profession.  He  had  fallen  ill, 
and  a  trip  to  Italy  was  ordained.  There  he 
did  not,  as  has  been  asserted,  linger  over  Pom 
peii,  or  in  the  Roman  Catacombs,  but  saved  his 
time  and  enthusiasm  for  the  Quattrocentisti. 
He  admired  the  old  Umbrian  and  Tuscan  mas 
ters,  he  was  ravished  by  the  basilica  of  St. 
Francis  at  Assisi,  and  by  Santa  Maria  Novella, 
Florence.  Titian,  Tintoretto,  finally  Veronese, 
riveted  his  passion  for  what  has  been  falsely 
styled  the  "archaic."  Returning  to  Paris  he 
was  conducted  by  his  friend  Beauderon  to  the 
studio  of  Delacroix,  whom  he  adored.  He  re 
mained  just  fifteen  days,  when  the  shop  was 
closed.  Delacroix,  in  a  rage  because  of  the  lack 
of  talent  and  funds  among  his  pupils,  sent  them 
away.  Puvis  had  been  under  the  tuition  of 
Henri,  the  brother  of  Ary  Scheffer,  and  for 
years  spoke  with  reverence  of  that  serious  but 
mediocre  painter.  He  next  sought  the  advice 
of  Couture,  and  remained  with  him  three  months, 
not,  however,  quarrelling  with  the  master,  as  did 
later  another  pupil,  Edouard  Manet.  Puvis  was 
tractable  enough;  he  had  one  failing  —  not  al 
ways  a  sign  of  either  talent  or  the  reverse  —  he 
refused  to  see  or  paint  as  he  was  told  by  his 
teachers,  or,  indeed,  like  other  pupils.  Because 
of  this  stubbornness,  his  enemies,  among  whom 

303 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 

ranked  the  most  powerful  critics  of  Paris,  de 
clared  that  he  had  never  been  grounded  in  the 
elements  of  his  art,  that  he  could  not  draw  or 
design,  that  his  colour-sense  only  proved  col 
our-blindness.  To  be  sure,  he  does  not  boast 
a  fulgurant  brush,  and  his  line  is  often  stiff  and 
awkward;  but  he  had  the  fundamentals  of  deco 
rative  art  well  in  hand. 

After  his  death  thousands  of  sketches,  de 
signs,  pencilled  memoranda,  and  cartoons  were 
found,  and  then  there  was  whistled  another 
tune.  His  draughtsmanship  is  that  of  a  dec 
orative  artist,  as  the  Rodin  drawings  are  those 
of  a  sculptor,  not  of  a  painter.  Considering  the 
rigid  standard  by  which  the  work  of  Puvis  was 
judged,  criticism  was  not  altogether  wrong,  as 
was  claimed  when  the  wave  of  reaction  set  in. 
His  easel  pictures  are  not  ingratiating.  He  does 
not  show  well  in  a  gallery.  He  needs  huge 
spaces  in  which  to  swim  about;  there  he  makes 
the  compositions  of  other  men  seem  pigmy.  [It 
is  the  case  of  Wagner  repeated,  though  there  is 
little  likeness  between  the  ideas  of  the  French 
man  and  the  German,  except  an  epical  bigness. 
Judged  by  the  classical  concert-room  formulas, 
Wagner  must  not  be  compared  with  the  minia 
turist  Mendelssohn.  His  form  is  the  form  of 
the  music-drama,  not  the  symphonic  form.] 
Puvis  adhered  to  one  principle :  A  wall  is  a  wall, 
and  not  an  easel  picture;  it  is  flat,  and  that  flat 
ness  must  be  emphasised,  not  disguised;  deco 
ration  is  the  desideratum.  He  contrived  a 

3°4 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 

schematic  painting  that  would  harmonise  with 
the  flatness,  with  the  texture  and  the  architec 
tural  surroundings,  and,  as  George  Moore  has 
happily  said:  "No  other  painter  ever  kept  this 
end  so  strictly  before  his  eyes.  For  this  end 
Chavannes  reduced  his  palette  almost  to  a  mono 
chrome,  for  this  end  he  models  in  two  flat  tints, 
for  this  end  he  draws  in  huge  undisciplined 
masses.  .  .  .  Mural  decoration,  if  it  form  part 
of  the  wall,  should  be  a  variant  of  the  stone 
work."  One  might  take  exception  to  the  word 
"undisciplined"  —  Puvis  was  one  of  the  most 
calculating  painters  that  ever  used  a  brush,  and 
one  of  the  most  cerebral.  His  favourite  apho 
rism  was:  "Beauty  is  character."  His  figures 
have  been  called  immobile,  his  palette  impov 
erished;  the  unfair  sex  abused  his  lean,  lanky 
female  creatures,  and  finally  he  was  named  a 
painter  for  Lent  —  for  fast-days.  Even  the  hi 
eratic  figures  of  Moreau  were  pronounced  opu 
lent  in  comparison  with  the  pale  moonlighted 
spectres  of  the  Puvis  landscapes.  Courbet,  in 
Paris,  was  known  as  the  "furious  madman"; 
Puvis,  as  the  "tranquil  lunatic."  Nine  of  his 
pictures  were  refused  at  the  Salon,  though  in 
1859  he  exhibited  there  his  Return  from  Hunt 
ing,  and,  in  1861,  even  received  a  second-class 
medal.  His  fecundity  was  enormous.  His  prin 
cipal  work  comprises  the  Life  of  Ste.  Genevieve 
(the  saint  is  a  portrait  of  his  princess),  at  the 
Pantheon;  Summer  and  Winter  at  the  H6tel 
de  Ville,  the  decorations  for  the  amphitheatre 

305 


PUVIS  DE   CHAVANNES 

of  the  Sorbonne,  the  decorations  at  Rouen, 
Inter  Artes  et  Naturam;  at  Rouen,  The  Sacred 
Wood,  Vision  Antique,  The  Rhone,  The  Saone; 
the  decorations  at  Amiens,  War,  Peace,  Rest, 
Labour,  Ave  Picardia  Nutrix,  and  two  smaller 
grisailles,  Vigilance  and  Fancy;  at  Marseilles, 
the  Marseilles,  Porte  d'  Orient,  and  Marseilles, 
the  Greek  Colony;  the  decorations  for  the  Bos 
ton  Public  Library,  and  his  easel  picture,  The 
Poor  Fisherman,  now  in  the  Luxembourg.  As 
to  this  latter,  the  painter  explained  that  he  had 
found  the  model  in  the  person  of  a  wretchedly 
poor  fisherman  at  the  estuary  of  the  Seine;  the 
young  girl  is  a  sister,  and  the  landscape  is  that 
of  the  surroundings,  though,  as  is  the  case  with 
Puvis,  greatly  generalised.  The  above  is  but  a 
slender  list.  New  York  has  at  the  Metropoli 
tan  Museum  at  least  one  of  his  works,  and  in 
the  collection  here  of  John  Quinn,  Esq.,  there 
is  the  brilliant  masterpiece,  The  Beheading  of 
John  the  Baptist,  and  two  large  mural  decora 
tions,  The  River  and  The  Vintage.  They  were 
painted  in  1866.  They  are  magnificent  museum 
pictures. 

All  his  frescoes  are  applied  canvases.  He 
didn't  worry  much  over  antique  methods,  nor 
can  it  be  said  that  his  work  is  an  attempt  to 
rehabilitate  the  Italian  Primitives.  On  the  con 
trary,  Puvis  is  distinctly  modern,  and  that  is 
his  chief  offence  in  the  eyes  of  official  French 
art;  while  the  fact  that  his  "modernity"  was 
transposed  to  decorative  purposes,  and  appeared 
306 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 

in  so  strange  a  guise,  caused  the  younger  men 
to  eye  him  suspiciously.  (Just  as  some  recal 
citrant  music-critics  refuse  to  recognise  in  cer 
tain  compositions  of  Johannes  Brahms  the  tem 
peramental  romantic.)  Thus  in  the  estimation 
of  rival  camps  Puvis  fell  between  two  stools. 
He  has  been  styled  a  latter-day  Domenico 
Ghirlandajo,  but  this  attribution  rings  more 
literary  than  literal. 

Mr.  Brownell  with  his  accustomed  sense  of 
critical  values  has  to  our  notion  definitely 
summed  up  the  question:  "His  classicism  is 
absolutely  unacademic,  his  romanticism  unreal 
beyond  the  verge  of  mysticism  and  so  preoccu 
pied  with  visions  that  he  may  almost  be  called 
a  man  for  whom  the  actual  world  does  not 
exist  —  in  the  converse  of  Gautier's  phrase. 
His  distinction  is  wholly  personal.  He  lives 
evidently  on  a  high  plane,  dwells  habitually  in 
the  delectable  highlands  of  the  intellect.  The 
fact  that  his  work  is  almost  wholly  decorative 
is  not  at  all  accidental.  His  talent,  his  genius, 
if  one  chooses,  requires  large  spaces,  vast  di 
mensions.  There  has  been  a  good  deal  of  profit 
less  discussion  as  to  whether  he  expressly 
imitates  the  Primitives  or  reproduces  them 
sympathetically;  but  really  he  does  neither,  he 
deals  with  their  subjects  occasionally,  but  al 
ways  in  a  completely  modern  as  well  as  a 
thoroughly  personal  way.  His  colour  is  as  origi 
nal  as  his  general  treatment  and  composition." 

His  men  and  women  are  not  precisely  pagan, 

307 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 

nor  are  they  biblical.  But  they  reveal  traits  of 
both  strained  through  a  drastic  "modern"  in 
tellect.  They  are  not  abstractions;  the  men 
are  virile,  the  women  maternal.  There  is  the 
spirit  of  humanity,  not  of  decadence.  Puvis, 
like  Moreau,  did  not  turn  his  back  to  the  rising 
sun.  He  admired  Degas,  Manet,  Monet.  At 
first  he  patterned  after  his  friend  Chasseriau,  a 
fine  and  too-little-known  painter,  and  at  one 
time  a  mural  decorator  before  he  became  im 
mersed  in  Oriental  themes.  The  lenten  land 
scapes  of  Puvis  are  not  merely  scenic  back 
grounds,  but  integral  parts  of  the  general 
decorative  web,  and  they  are  not  conceived  in 
No  Man's  Land,  but  selected  from  the  vicinity 
of  Paris.  Puvis  is  by  no  means  a  virtuoso.  His 
pace  is  usually  andante;  but  he  knows  how  to 
evoke  a  mood,  summon  the  solemn  music  of 
mural  spaces.  His  is  a  theme  with  variations. 
The  wall  or  ceiling  is  ever  the  theme.  His 
crabbed  fugues  soon  melt  into  the  larger  austere 
music  of  the  wall.  His  choral  walls  are  true 
epopees.  He  is  a  master  harmonist.  He  sounds 
oftener  the  symphonic  than  the  lyric  note.  He 
gains  his  most  moving  effects  without  setting  in 
motion  the  creaking  allegorical  machinery  of  the 
academy.  He  shows  the  simple  attitudes  of  life 
transfigured  without  rhetoric.  He  avoids  frigid 
allegory,  yet  employs  symbols.  His  tonal  at 
tenuations,  elliptical  and  syncopated  rhythms, 
his  atmosphere  of  the  remote,  the  mysterious  — 
all  these  give  the  spectator  the  sense  of  seren- 

308 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 

ity,  momentary  freedom  from  the  feverishness 
of  every-day  life,  and  suggest  the  lofty  wisdom 
of  the  classic  poets.  But  the  serpent  of  futile 
melancholy,  of  the  brief  cadence  of  mortal 
dreams,  and  of  the  vanishing  seconds  that  de 
file  down  the  corridor  of  time,  has  stolen  into 
this  Garden  of  the  Hesperides.  Puvis  de  Cha- 
vannes,  no  more  than  Gustave  Moreau,  could 
escape  the  inquietude  of  his  times.  He  is  oc 
casionally  Parisian  and  often  pessimist. 

The  inability  of  his  contemporaries  to  under 
stand  his  profound  decorative  genius,  his  tact 
in  the  handling  of  the  great  problem  of  lighting 
—  the  key  is  always  higher  because  of  the  dif 
ferent  or  softer  light  of  public  buildings  and 
the  gloom  of  churches  —  and  his  feeling  for  the 
wall,  purely  as  wall,  a  flat  space,  not  to  be  con 
founded  with  the  pseudo  art  that  would  make 
the  picture  like  an  open  window  in  the  wall, 
but  based  on  the  flatness  of  the  material  and 
the  aerial  magic  of  his  spacing,  sorely  troubled 
him  for  half  a  century.  Doubtless  it  was  his 
refusal  to  visit  Boston  and  study  there  the  ar 
chitectural  conditions  of  the  Public  Library  that 
resulted  in  the  hang-fire  of  his  decorations, 
though  they  are  of  an  exalted  order.  One  at 
least  served  as  a  spring-board  for  the  decorative 
impulse  of  Besnard,  as  may  be  noted  in  his 
frescoes  on  the  ceiling  at  the  H6tel  de  Ville, 
Paris. 

That  Puvis  de  Chavannes  was  not  an  unfeel 
ing  Bonze  of  art,  but  a  man  of  tender  heart  and 

3°9 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 

warm  affections  was  proved  after  the  death  of 
his  much-loved  Princess  Marie  Cantacuzene. 
Two  months  later  sorrow  over  her  loss  killed 
him.  He  had  painted  the  thousand  and  one 
expressive  moments  in  the  life  of  our  species  as 
a  hymn  to  humanity,  and  their  contours  are 
eternal.  Eternal?  A  vain  phrase;  but  eternal 
till  the  canvas  fades  and  the  walls  decay,  that 
is  nearer  the  truth.  Art  is  long  and  appre 
ciation  sometimes  a  chilly  consolation.  Let  us 
stick  to  the  eternal  verities.  As  D'Annunzio  has 
it:  Quella  musica  silenziosa  delle  linee  immobili 
era  cosi  possente  che  creava  il  fantasma  quasi 
visibile  di  una  vita  piu  ricca  e  piii  bella. 


310 


XVIII 
THREE  DISAGREEABLE  GIRLS 

I 
HEDDA 

HAZLITT  tells  us  in  a  delightful  essay  about 
the  whimsical  notion  of  Charles  Lamb  that  he 
would  rather  see  Sir  Thomas  Browne  than 
Shakespeare.  A  pleasant  recreation  is  this  same 
picking  out  "of  persons  one  would  wish  to  have 
seen."  Causing  great  annoyance  to  Ayrton  at 
an  evening  party,  Lamb  rejected  the  names  of 
Milton  and  Shakespeare,  selecting  those  of 
Browne  and  Fulke  Greville  —  the  friend  of  Sir 
Philip  Sidney.  For  the  prince  of  essayists  there 
was  mystery  hovering  about  the  personalities  of 
this  pair.  I  have  often  wondered  if  the  most 
resounding  names  in  history  are  the  best  be 
loved.  Or  in  fiction.  What  is  the  name  of 
your  favourite  heroine  ?  Whom  should  you  like 
to  meet  in  that  long  corridor  of  time  leading  to 
eternity,  the  walls  lined  with  the  world's  mas 
terpieces  of  portraiture  ?  I  can  answer  for  my- 
seJf  that  no  Shakespearian  lovely  dame  or  Bal- 
zacian  demon  in  petticoats  would  ever  be  taken 
off  the  wall  by  me.  They  are  either  too  remote 

3" 


THREE  DISAGREEABLE  GIRLS 

or  too  unreal,  though  a  word  might  be  said  for 
Valerie  Marneffe.  In  the  vasty  nebula  of  the 
Henry  James  novel  there  are  alluringly  strange 
women,  but  if  you  summon  them  they  fade 
and  resolve  themselves  into  everlasting  phrases. 
In  a  word,  they  are  not  tangible  enough  to  en 
dure  the  change  of  moral  climate  involved  in 
such  a  game  as  that  played  by  Charles  Lamb 
and  his  friends. 

But  Emma  Bovary  might  come  if  you  but 
ardently  desired.  And  the  fascinating  Anna 
Karenina.  Or  Becky  Sharp  with  her  sly  graces. 
Perhaps  some  of  Dostoievsky's  enigmatic,  be 
wildering  girls  should  be  included  in  the  list,  for 
they  brim  over  with  magnetism,  very  often  a 
malicious  magnetism,  and  their  glances  are  elo 
quent  with  suffering,  haunt  like  the  eyes  one 
sees  in  a  gallery  of  old  masters.  I  do  not  speak 
of  Sonia,  but  of  the  passionate  Natasia  Phili- 
povna  in  The  Idiot,  or  Aglaya  Epanchin,  in  the 
same  powerful  novel,  or  Paulina  in  The  Gam 
bler.  However,  we  cannot  allow  ourselves  the 
luxury  of  so  many  favourites,  even  if  they  are 
only  made  of  paper  and  ink.  I  confess  I  am  an 
admirer  of  Emma  Bovary.  To  the  gifted  young 
critics  of  to-day  the  work,  and  its  sharply  etched 
characters,  has  become  a  mere  stalking  horse 
for  a  new-fangled  philosophy  of  Jules  Gaultier, 
called  Bovarysme,  but  for  me  it  will  always  be 
the  portrait  of  that  unhappy  girl  with  the  pal 
lid  complexion,  velvety  dark  eyes,  luxuriant 
hair,  and  languid  charm.  Anna  Karenina  is 
312 


THREE  DISAGREEABLE   GIRLS 

more  aristocratic;  above  all,  she  knew  what 
happiness  meant;  its  wing  only  brushed  the 
cheek  of  Emma.  Her  death  is  more  lamen 
table  than  Anna's  —  one  can  well  sympathise 
with  Flaubert's  mental  and  physical  condition 
after  he  had  written  that  appalling  chapter  de 
scribing  the  poisoning  of  Emma.  No  wonder 
he  thought  he  tasted  arsenic,  and  couldn't  sleep. 
Balzac,  Dickens,  and  Thackeray  were  thus  af 
fected  by  their  own  creations,  yet  Flaubert  is 
to  this  day  called  "impersonal,"  "cold,"  be 
cause  he  never  made  concessions  to  sentimen- 
talism,  never  told  tales  out  of  his  workshop  for 
gaping  indifferents. 

As  for  Becky  Sharp,  that  kittenish  person 
seldom  arouses  in  me  much  curiosity.  I  agree 
with  George  Moore  that  Thackeray,  in  the  in 
terests  of  mid-Victorian  morality,  suppressed 
many  of  her  characteristics,  telling  us  too  little 
of  her  amatory  temperament.  Possibly,  Mr. 
Moore  may  err,  Becky  may  have  had  no  "tem 
perament,"  notwithstanding  her  ability  to  twist 
men  around  her  expressive  digits.  That  she 
was  disagreeable  when  she  set  herself  out  to  be 
I  do  not  doubt;  in  fact,  she  is  the  protagonist 
of  a  whole  generation  of  disagreeable  heroines 
in  English  fiction.  Bernard  Shaw  did  not  over 
look  her  pertness  and  malevolence,  though  all 
his  girls  are  disagreeable,  even  —  pardon  the 
paradox  —  his  agreeable  ones.  But  they  are  as 
portraiture  far  too  "papery,"  to  borrow  a  word 
from  painters'  jargon,  for  my  purpose.  They 

3*3 


THREE  DISAGREEABLE   GIRLS 

are  not  alive,  they  only  are  mouthpieces  for  the 
author's  rather  old-time  ideas. 

I  mention  the  four  heroines  of  a  former 
period,  Valerie,  Becky,  Emma,  Anna,  not  be 
cause  they  are  all  disagreeable,  but  because 
they  are  my  pets  in  fiction.  Thoroughly  dis 
agreeable  girls  are  Hedda  Gabler,  Mildred  Law- 
son,  and  Undine  Spragg.  Of  course,  in  a  cer 
tain  sense  old  Wotan  Ibsen  is  the  father  of 
the  latter-day  Valkyrie  brood.  The  "feminist" 
movement  is  not  responsible  for  them;  there 
were  disagreeable  females  before  the  flood,  yet 
somehow  the  latter  part  of  the  last  and  the 
beginning  of  the  present  century  have  produced 
a  big  flock  in  painting,  music  (Richard  Strauss's 
operas),  drama,  and  literature.  Hedda  boldly 
carved  out  of  a  single  block  stands  out  as  the 
very  Winged  Victory  of  her  species.  In  her 
there  is  a  hint  of  Emma  B ovary;  both  are  in 
corrigible  romanticists,  snobs,  girls  for  whom 
the  present  alone  exists.  She  is  decadent  inas 
much  as  her  nerves  rule  her  actions,  and  at  the 
rising  of  the  curtain  her  nerves  are  in  rags. 
Henry  James  finds  in  Ibsen  a  "charmless  fas 
cination,"  but  by  no  means  insists  on  the  point 
that  Hedda  is  disagreeable.  Nor  is  he  so  sure 
that  she  is  wicked,  though  he  admits  her  per 
versity.  The  late  Grant  Allen  once  said  to 
William  Archer  that  Hedda  was  "nothing  more 
nor  less  than  the  girl  we  take  down  to  dinner 
in  London,  nineteen  times  out  of  twenty,"  which, 
to  put  it  mildly,  is  an  exaggeration.  The  truth 


THREE  DISAGREEABLE  GIRLS 

is,  Hedda  is  less  a  type  than  a  "rare  case,"  but 
to  diagnose  her  as  merely  neurasthenic  is  also 
to  go  wide  of  the  mark.  Doubtless  her  condi 
tion  may  have  added  bitterness  to  her  already 
overflowing  cup;  nevertheless  Hedda  is  not  al 
together  a  pathological  study.  Approaching 
motherhood  is  not  a  veil  for  her  multitude  of 
sins.  How  soon  are  we  shown  her  cruel  nature 
in  the  dialogue  with  devoted  Thea  Rysing, 
whose  hair  at  school  had  aroused  envy  in 
Hedda!  She  pulled  it  whenever  she  got  a 
chance,  just  as  she  pulled  from  its  hiding-place 
the  secret  of  the  timid  Thea.  Simply  to  say 
that  Hedda  is  the  incarnation  of  selfishness  is 
but  a  half-truth.  She  is  that  and  much  more. 
Charmless  never,  disagreeable  always,  she  had 
the  serpent's  charm,  the  charm  that  slowly  slays 
its  victim.  Her  father  succumbed  to  it,  else 
would  he  have  permitted  her  to  sit  in  corners 
with  poet  Eiljert  Lovborg  and  not  only  hold 
hands  but  listen  to  far  from  edifying  discourses? 
Not  a  nice  trait  in  Hedda  —  though  a  human, 
therefore  not  a  rare  one  —  is  her  curiosity  con 
cerning  forbidden  themes.  She  was  sly.  She 
was  morbid.  Last  of  all  she  was  cowardly. 
Yes,  largely  cerebral  was  her  interest  in  nasty 
things,  for  when  Eiljert  attempted  to  translate 
his  related  adventures  into  action  she  promptly 
threatened  him  with  a  pistol.  A  demi-vierge 
before  Marcel  Prevost.  Not  as  admirable  as 
either  Emma  Bovary  or  Anna  Karenina,  Hedda 
Gabler  married  George  Tesman  for  speculation. 


THREE  DISAGREEABLE   GIRLS 

He  had  promised  her  the  Falk  villa  —  the  scene 
plays  up  in  Christiania  —  and  he  expected  a 
professorship;  these,  with  a  little  ready  money 
and  the  selflessness  of  Aunt  Julia,  were  so  many 
bribes  for  the  anxious  Hedda,  whose  first  youth 
had  been  heedlessly  danced  away  without  mat 
rimonial  success. 

Mark  what  follows:  Ibsen,  the  sternest  mor 
alist  since  old  John  Knox,  doesn't  spare  his 
heroine.  He  places  her  between  the  devil  of 
Justice  Brack,  libertine  and  house  friend,  and 
the  deep  sea  of  the  debauched  genius,  Lovborg. 
To  make  a  four-square  of  ineluctable  fate  she  is 
flanked  on  either  side  by  her  mediocre  husband 
and  the  devoted  bore,  Thea  Rysing  —  Elvsted. 
Like  a  high-strung  Barbary  mare  —  she  was  of 
good  birth  and  breeding  —  her  nerves  tugging 
in  their  sheaths,  her  heart  a  burnt-out  cinder, 
Hedda  saw  but  one  way  to  escape  —  suicide. 
She  took  that  route  and  really  it  was  the  most 
profound  and  significant  act  of  her  life,  cow 
ardly  as  was  the  motive.  She  was  discontented, 
shallow,  the  victim  of  her  false  upbringing.  In 
a  more  intellectual  degree  Eiljert,  her  first  ad 
mirer,  is  her  counterpart.  Both  could  have 
consorted  with  Emma  Bovary  and  found  her 
"ideals"  sympathetic.  Emil  Reich  has  called 
Hedda  Gabler  the  tragedy  of  mesalliance.  It  is 
a  memorial  phrase.  George  Tesman  and  Charles 
Bovary  are  brothers  in  misfortune.  They  be 
long  to  those  husbands  "predestined"  to  be 
trayal,  as  Balzac  puts  it.  Councillor  Karenin 

316 


THREE  DISAGREEABLE   GIRLS 

completes  the  trio  and  Anna  hated  his  large 
ears;  but  before  Karenin,  Charles  Bovary  was 
despised  by  Emma  because  of  his  clumsy  feet 
and  inexpressive  bearing,  and  his  habit  of 
breathing  heavily  during  dinner.  George  Tes- 
man  with  his  purblind  faculties,  amiable  ways, 
and  semi-idiotic  exclamations  will  go  down  in 
the  history  of  fiction  with  Georges  Dandin, 
Bovary,  and  Karenin.  As  for  Hedda,  her  psy 
chological  index  is  clear  reading.  In  Peer  Gynt 
one  of  the  characters  is  described  thus:  "He  is 
hermetically  sealed  with  the  bung  of  self,  and 
he  tightens  the  staves  in  the  wells  of  self.  Each 
one  shuts  himself  in  the  cask  of  self,  plunges 
deep  down  in  the  ferment  of  self."  Imperfect 
sympathies,  misplaced  egoism  —  for  there  is  a 
true  as  well  as  a  false  egoism  —  a  craze  for  silly 
pleasures,  no  matter  the  cost,  and  a  mean  little 
vanity  that  sacrificed  lives  when  not  appeased. 
She  is  the  most  disagreeable  figure  in  modern 
drama.  Were  it  not  for  her  good  looks  and 
pity  for  her  misspent  life  and  death  she  would 
be  absolutely  unendurable.  The  dramatic  ge 
nius  of  Ibsen  makes  her  credible.  But  what  was 
the  matter  with  George  Tesman? 

We  cannot  help  noting  that  wherever  the 
feminine  preponderates,  whether  in  art,  politics, 
religion,  society,  there  is  a  corresponding  dimi 
nution  of  force  in  the  moral  and  physical  char 
acter  of  the  Eternal  Masculine.  In  the  Ibsen 
dramas  this  is  a  recognised  fact.  Therefore, 
Strindberg  called  Ibsen  an  old  corrupter.  What 


THREE  DISAGREEABLE   GIRLS 

is  the  matter  with  the  men  nowadays?  Hadn't 
they  better  awaken  to  the  truth  that  they  are 
no  longer  attractive,  or  indispensable?  Isn't  it 
time  for  the  ruder  sex  to  organise  as  a  step  to 
ward  preserving  their  fancied  inalienable  sov 
ereignty  of  the  globe?  In  Thus  Spake  Zara- 
thustra,  Nietzsche  wrote:  "Thou  goest  to 
women.  Remember  thy  whip."  But  Nietz 
sche,  was  he  not  an  old  bachelor,  almost  as 
censorious  as  his  master,  that  squire  of  dames, 
Arthur  Schopenhauer? 

II 
MILDRED 

While  Hedda  Gabler  is  "cerebral"  without 
being  intellectual,  you  feel  that  she  is  more  a 
creature  of  impulse  than  Mildred  Lawson,  who 
for  me  is  George  Moore's  masterpiece  in  por 
traiture.  Hedda  is  chilly  enough,  Mildred  is 
distinctly  frigid,  yet  such  is  the  art  of  her 
creator  that  she  comes  to  us  invested  with 
warmer  colours;  withal,  about  as  disagreeable 
a  girl  as  you  may  encounter  in  the  literature  of 
to-day.  Now  Mr.  Moore  is  an  outspoken  de 
fender  of  the  few  crumbling  privileges  of  man  at 
a  time  when  the  "ladies"  are  claiming  the  earth 
and  adjacent  planets.  Yet  I  don't  believe  he 
wrote  Mildred  Lawson  (in  the  volume  entitled 
Celibates)  with  malice  prepense.  Too  great  an 
artist  to  use  as  a  dialectic  battering-ram  one  of 
his  characters,  for  all  that  he  makes  Mildred 


THREE  DISAGREEABLE   GIRLS 

very  "modern."  She  doesn't  despise  men,  nor 
does  she  care  much  for  the  ideas  of  her  dowdy 
friend  the  "advanced"  Mrs.  Fargus;  on  the 
contrary,  she  makes  fun  of  her  clothes  and  ideas, 
though  secretly  regretting  that  she  hadn't  been 
sent  by  her  parents  to  Girton  College.  Like 
Hedda  she  is  ambitious  to  outshine  any  circle 
in  which  she  finds  herself.  Modern  she  is,  not 
because  of  her  petty  traits,  but  simply  because 
Mr.  Moore  has  painted  a  young  woman  of  the 
day,  rich,  and  so  selfish  that  at  the  end  her 
selfishness  strangles  the  little  soul  she  possesses. 
Her  brother  Harold,  a  sedate  business  man,  is 
also  a  celibate  whose  ambition  in  life  seems  to  be 
the  catching  of  the  9  :  10  A.  M.  train  to  Victoria 
Station  and  the  return  to  his  suburban  home 
on  the  6  P.  M.  (He  is  not  unlike  a  fussy  little 
man,  Willy  Brooks,  in  the  same  Irish  writer's 
early  novel,  Spring  Days.)  A  rejected  but  ever 
hopeful  suitor  of  Mildred's  about  comprises  her 
domestic  entourage. 

She  is  ambitious.  She  hates  the  "stuffy"  life 
of  a  hausfrau,  but  marriage  makes  no  appeal, 
since  the  breaking  of  her  engagement  with  Al 
fred  —  who  is  also  a  man  with  punctual  business 
habits.  She  despises  conventional  men,  and  is 
herself  compact  of  conventionality.  In  her  most 
rebellious  moods  the  leaven  of  Philistia  (or  the 
British  equivalent,  Suburbia)  comes  to  the  sur 
face.  She  dares,  but  doesn't  dare  enough.  "It 
needs  both  force  and  earnestness  to  sin."  As 
in  the  case  of  Hedda  Gabler,  it  is  her  social 


THREE  DISAGREEABLE   GIRLS 

conscience  that  keeps  her  from  throwing  her 
bonnet  over  the  moon,  not  her  sense  of  moral 
values;  in  a  word,  virtue  by  snobbish  compul 
sion.  One  thinks  of  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti 
and  the  searing  irony  of  his  sonnet,  Vain  Vir 
tues.  The  virtue  of  Mildred  Lawson  is  vanity 
of  vanities  and  the  abomination  of  desolation. 

She  often  argued  that  "it  was  not  for  selfish 
motives  that  she  desired  freedom."  Her  ca 
pacity  for  self-illuding  is  enormous.  She  didn't 
love  her  drawing-master,  the  unfortunate  Mr. 
Hoskin,  who  had  a  talent  for  landscape,  but  no 
money,  yet  she  allowed  the  man  to  think  she 
did  care  a  little  and  it  sent  him  into  bad  health 
when  he  found  she  had  fooled  him.  The  scene 
in  the  studio,  where  the  dead  painter  lies  in  his 
coffin,  between  Mildred  and  his  mistress  —  a 
model  from  the  "lower"  ranks  of  life  —  is  one 
of  the  most  stirring  in  modern  fiction.  The 
"lady"  comes  off  second-best;  when  she  begins 
to  stammer  that  she  hoped  the  dead  man  hadn't 
suggested  improper  relations,  the  unhappy  girl 
turns  on  her:  "I  dare  say  you  were  virtuous 
more  or  less,  as  far  as  your  own  body  is  con 
cerned.  Faugh !  women  like  you  make  virtue 
seem  odious."  Mildred,  indignant  at  such  "low 
conversation,"  makes  her  escape,  slightly  elated 
at  the  romantic  crisis.  A  real  man  has  died  for 
her  sake.  After  all,  life  is  not  so  barren  of  in 
terest. 

She  goes  to  Paris.  Studies  art.  Returns  to 
London.  Again  to  Paris  and  the  forest  of  Fon- 
320 


THREE  DISAGREEABLE  GIRLS 

tainebleau,  where  she  joins  a  student  colony 
and  flirts  with  a  young  painter;  but  it  all 
comes  to  nothing,  just  as  her  work  in  the  Ju 
lian  Studio  has  no  artistic  result.  Mr.  Moore, 
who  is  a  landscape-painter,  has  drawn  a  capital 
picture  of  the  forest,  though  not  with  the 
fulness  of  charm  to  be  found  in  Flaubert's  treat 
ment  of  the  same  theme  in  Sentimental  Edu 
cation.  The  little  tale  is  a  genuine  contribu 
tion  to  fiction  in  which  art  is  adequately  dealt 
with.  When  Celibates  appeared,  Henry  Har- 
land  said  that  Mildred  Lawson  was  worthy  of 
Flaubert  if  it  had  been  written  in  good  English, 
which  is  a  manifest  epigram.  The  volume  is  a 
perfect  breviary  of  selfishness. 

Tiring  of  art,  Mildred  takes  up  society,  though 
she  gets  into  a  rather  dubious  Paris  set.  A  so 
cialist  deputy  and  his  wife  protect  her  and  she 
becomes  a  brilliant  contributor  —  at  least  so 
she  is  made  to  believe  —  to  a  publication  in 
which  is  eventually  sunk  a  lot  of  her  money. 
Her  brother  has  warned  her,  but  to  no  avail. 
At  this  juncture  the  tale  becomes  slightly  mys 
terious.  Mildred  flirts  with  the  deputy,  his 
wife  is  apparently  willing  —  having  an  inter 
est  elsewhere  —  and  suddenly  the  bottom  drops 
out  of  the  affair,  and  Mildred  poorer,  also 
wiser,  returns  to  her  home  in  England.  She 
has  embraced  the  Roman  Catholic  religion,  but 
you  do  not  feel  she  is  sincerely  pious.  It  is 
one  more  gesture  in  her  sterile  career.  At  the 
end  we  find  her  trying  to  evade  the  inevitable 
321 


THREE  DISAGREEABLE  GIRLS 

matrimony,  for  she  is  alone,  her  brother  dead, 
and  she  an  heiress.  Suspicious  of  her  suitor's 
motives  —  it  is  the  same  faithful  Alfred  —  she 
wearily  debates  the  situation:  "Her  nerves  were 
shattered,  and  life  grows  terribly  distinct  in  the 
insomnia  of  the  hot  summer  night.  .  .  .  She 
threw  herself  over  and  over  in  her  burning  bed, 
until  at  last  her  soul  cried  out  in  lucid  misery: 
'Give  me  a  passion  for  god  or  man,  but  give 
me  a  passion.  I  cannot  live  without  one."' 
For  her  "mad  and  sane  are  the  same  misprint." 
And  on  this  lyric  note  the  book  closes. 

I  believe  if  Hedda  Gabler  had  hesitated  and 
her  father's  pistol  hadn't  been  hard  by,  she 
would  have  recovered  her  poise  and  deceived 
her  husband.  I  believe  that  if  Emma  Bovary 
had  escaped  that  snag  of  debt  she  would  have 
continued  to  fool  Charles.  And  I  believe  Mil 
dred  Lawson  married  at  last  and  fooled  herself 
into  the  belief  that  she  had  a  superior  soul, 
misunderstood  by  the  world  and  her  husband. 
There  is  no  telling  how  vermicular  are  the 
wrigglings  of  mean  souls.  Mildred  was  a  snob, 
therefore  mean  of  soul;  and  she  was  a  cold 
snob,  hence  her  cruelty.  That  she  was  an  emi 
nently  disagreeable  girl  I  need  hardly  empha 
sise.  Nevertheless  the  young  chaps  found  her 
dainty  and  her  poor  girl  friends,  the  artists,  en 
vied  her  pretty  frocks.  She  had  small  shell- 
like  ears,  ears  that  are  danger-signals  to  experi 
enced  men. 

When  I  reread  her  history  I  was  reminded 
322 


THREE  DISAGREEABLE  GIRLS 

of  the  princess  in  the  allegory  of  Ephraim 
Mikhael,  called  The  Captive.  She  was  the  cold 
princess  held  captive  in  the  hall  with  the  wall 
of  brass.  Wherever  she  turns  or  walks  she  sees 
a  welcome  visitor:  it  is  always  her  own  insolent 
image  in  the  mirrors  on  the  walls.  These  mir 
rors  make  of  herself  her  own  eternal  jailer. 
When  she  gazes  from  the  window  of  her  prison 
tower  she  sees  no  one.  No  conquering  lover 
comes  to  deliver  her  from  the  bondage  of  self. 
In  the  slave  who  offers  rare  fruits  and  precious 
wines  in  cups  of  emerald  she  sees  only  a  mock 
ery  of  herself,  the  words  of  consolation  remind 
her  of  her  own  voice.  "And  that  is  why  the 
sorrowful  Princess  drives  away  the  beautiful 
loving  slave,  more  cruel  even  than  the  mirrors." 
Egotist  to  the  end,  both  Mildred  and  the  Prin 
cess  see  naught  in  the  universe  save  the  magni 
fied  image  of  themselves. 


Ill 
UNDINE 

Perhaps  there  is  more  than  a  nuance  of  cari 
cature  in  the  choice  of  such  a  name  as  "Undine 
Spragg"  for  the  heroine  of  Edith  Wharton's 
The  Custom  of  the  Country.  Throughout  that 
book,  with  its  brilliant  enamel-like  surfaces, 
there  is  a  tendency  to  make  sport  of  our  na 
tional  weakness  for  resounding  names.  Undine 
Spragg  —  hideous  collocation  —  is  not  the  only 

323 


THREE  DISAGREEABLE  GIRLS 

offence.  There  is  Indiana  Frusk  of  Apex  City, 
and  Millard  Binch,  a  combination  in  which  the 
Dickens  of  American  Notes  would  have  found 
amusement.  Hotels  with  titles  like  The  Sten 
torian  are  not  exaggerated.  Miss  Spragg's 
ancestor  had  invented  "a  hair  waver";  hence 
the  name  Undine:  "from  undoolay,  you  know, 
the  French  for  crimping,"  as  the  simple-hearted 
mother  of  the  girl  explained  to  a  suitor.  Mrs. 
Wharton  has  been  cruel,  with  a  glacial  cruelty, 
to  her  countrywomen  of  the  Spragg  type.  But 
they  abound.  They  come  from  the  North, 
East,  South,  West  to  conquer  New  York,  and 
thanks  to  untiring  energy,  a  handsome  exterior, 
and  much  money,  they  "arrive"  sooner  or  later. 
With  all  her  overaccentuated  traits  and  the 
metallic  quality  of  technique  in  the  handling  of 
her  portrait,  Undine  Spragg  is  both  a  type  and 
an  individual  —  she  is  the  newest  variation  of 
Daisy  Miller  —  and  compared  with  her  brazen 
charmlessness  the  figures  of  Hedda  Gabler  and 
Mildred  Lawson  seem  melting  with  tenderness, 
aglow  with  subtle  charm  and  muffied  exaltation. 
Undine  —  shades  of  La  Motte  Fouque  —  is  quite 
the  most  disagreeable  girl  in  our  fiction.  She 
has  been  put  under  a  glass  and  subjected  to  the 
air-pump  pressure  of  Mrs.  Wharton's  art.  She 
is  a  much  more  viable  :ature  than  the  au 
thor's  earlier  Lily  Bart,  the  heroine  of  The 
House  of  Mirth.  At  least  Undine  is  not  sloppy 
or  sentimental,  and  that  is  a  distinct  claim  on 
the  suffrages  of  the  intelligent  reader.  Further- 

324 


THREE  DISAGREEABLE  GIRLS 

more,  the  clear  hard  atmosphere  of  the  book  is 
tempered  by  a  tragic  and  humorous  irony,  a 
welcome  astringent  for  the  mental  palate. 

In  Apex  City  Undine  made  up  her  mind  to 
have  her  own  way.  She  elopes  and  marries  a 
vulgar  "hustler,"  but  is  speedily  divorced.  She 
is  very  beautiful  when  she  reaches  New  York. 
No  emotional  experience  would  leave  a  blur  on 
her  radiant  youth,  because  love  for  her  is  a 
sensation,  not  a  sentiment.  By  indirect  and 
cumulative  touches  the  novelist  evokes  for  us 
her  image.  Truly  a  lovely  apparition,  almost 
mindless,  with  great  sympathetic  eyes  and  a 
sweet  mouth.  She  exists,  does  Undine.  She  is 
not  the  barren  fruit  of  a  satirical  pen.  For 
eigners,  both  men  and  women,  puzzle  over  her 
freedom,  chilliness,  and  commercial  horse-sense. 
She  doesn't  long  intrigue  their  curiosity,  her 
brain  is  poorly  furnished  and  conversation  with 
her  is  not  a  fine  art.  She  is  temperamental  in 
the  sense  that  she  lives  on  her  nerves;  without 
the  hum  and  glitter  of  the  opera,  fashionable 
restaurants,  or  dances  she  relapses  into  a  sullen 
stupor,  or  rages  wildly  at  the  fate  that  made 
her  poor.  She,  too,  like  Hedda  and  Emma, 
lives  in  the  moment,  a  silly  moth  enamoured  of 
a  millionaire.  Mildred  Lawson  is  positively  in 
tellectual  in  comp?r-;son,  for  she  has  a  "go"  at 
picture-making,  wii^e  the  only  pictures  Undine 
cares  for  are  those  produced  by  her  own  exqui 
sitely  plastic  figure.  No  wonder  Ralph  Marvell 
fell  in  1<  e  with  her,  or,  rather,  in  love  with  his 

325 


THREE  DISAGREEABLE   GIRLS 

poetic  vision  of  her.  He  was,  poor  man,  an 
idealist,  and  his  fine  porcelain  was  soon  cracked 
in  contact  with  her  brassy  egotism. 

He  is  of  the  old  Washington  Square  stock,  as 
antique  —  and  as  honourable  —  as  Methuselah. 
Undine  soon  tires  of  him ;  above  all,  tires  of  his 
family  and  their  old-fashioned  social  code.  For 
her  the  rowdy  joys  of  Peter  Van  Degen  and  his 
set.  The  Odyssey  of  Undine  is  set  forth  for  us 
by  an  accomplished  artist  in  prose.  We  see  her 
in  Italy,  blind  to  its  natural  beauties,  blind  to 
its  art,  unhappy  till  she  gets  into  the  "hurrah" 
of  St.  Moritz.  We  follow  her  hence,  note  her 
trailing  her  petty  misery  —  boredom  because 
she  can't  spend  extravagantly  —  through  mod 
ish  drawing-rooms;  then  a  fresh  hegira,  Europe, 
a  divorce,  the  episode  with  Peter  Van  Degen 
and  its  profound  disillusionment  (she  has  the 
courage  to  jump  the  main-travelled  road  of  con 
vention  for  a  brief  term)  and  her  remarriage. 
That,  too,  is  a  failure,  only  because  Undine  so 
wills  it.  She  has  literally  killed  her  second  hus 
band  because  she  wins  from  him  by  "legal" 
means  their  child,  and  in  the  end  she  again  mar 
ries  her  divorced  husband,  Elmer  Moffatt,  now  a 
magnate,  a  multimillionaire.  She  has  at  last 
followed  the  advice  of  Mrs.  Heeny,  her  adviser 
and  masseuse.  "  Go  steady,  Undine,  and  you'll 
get  anywheres."  We  leave  her  in  a  blaze  of 
rubies  and  glory  at  her  French  chateau,  and  she 
isn't  happy,  for  she  has  just  learned  that,  being 
divorced,  she  can  never  be  an  ambassadress, 
326 


THREE  DISAGREEABLE  GIRLS 

and  that  her  major  detestation,  the  "Jim  Dris- 
colls,"  had  been  appointed  to  the  English  court 
as  ambassador  from  America.  The  novel  ends 
with  this  coda:  "She  could  never  be  an  ambas 
sador's  wife;  and  as  she  advanced  to  welcome 
her  first  guests,  she  said  to  herself,  that  it  was 
the  one  part  she  was  really  made  for."  The 
truth  is  she  was  bored  as  a  wife,  and  like  Emma 
B  ovary,  found  in  adultery  all  the  platitudes  of 
marriage. 

You  ask  yourself,  after  studying  the  play, 
and  the  two  novels,  if  the  new  woman  is  neces 
sarily  disagreeable.  To  my  way  of  thinking,  it 
is  principally  the  craving  for  novelty  in  char 
acterisation  that  has  wrought  the  change  in  our 
heroines  of  fiction,  although  new  freedom  and 
responsibilities  have  evolved  new  types.  Nat 
urally  the  pulchritudinous  weakling  we  shall  al 
ways  have  with  us,  ugly  girls  with  brains  are 
a  welcome  relief  from  the  eternal  purring  of  the 
popular  girl  with  the  baby  smile.  But  it  would 
be  a  mistake  to  call  Hedda,  or  Mildred,  or  Un 
dine,  new  women.  Mildred  is  the  most  "ad 
vanced,"  Hedda  the  most  dangerous  —  she 
pulled  the  trigger  far  too  early  —  and  Undine 
the  most  selfish  of  the  three.  The  three  are 
disagreeable,  but  the  trio  is  transitional  in  type. 
Each  girl  is  a  compromiser,  Undine  being  the 
boldest;  she  did  a  lot  of  shifting  and  indulged 
in  much  cowardly  evasion.  Vulgarians  all, 
they  are  yet  too  complex  to  be  pinned  down 
by  a  formula.  Old  wine  in  these  three  new 

327 


THREE  DISAGREEABLE  GIRLS 

bottles  makes  for  disaster.  Undine  Spragg  is 
the  worst  failure  of  the  three.  She  got  what 
she  wanted  for  she  wanted  only  dross.  Ibsen's 
Button-Moulder  will  meet  her  at  the  Cross- 
Roads  when  her  time  comes.  Hedda,  like 
Strindberg's  Julia,  may  escape  him  because, 
coward  as  she  was  when  facing  harsh  reality, 
she  had  the  courage  to  rid  her  family  of  a 
worthless  encumbrance.  If  she  had  been  a 
robust  egoist,  and  realised  her  nature  to  the 
full,  she  would  have  been  a  Hedda  Gabler 
"reversed,"  in  a  word,  the  Hilda  Wangel  of 
The  Master  Builder.  But  with  Mildred  she 
lacked  the  strength  either  to  renounce  or  to  sin. 
And  Undine  Spragg  hadn't  the  courage  to  be 
come  downright  wicked;  the  game  she  played 
was  so  pitiful  that  it  wasn't  worth  the  poor 
little  tallow-dip.  What  is  her  own  is  the  will- 
to-silliness.  As  Princess  Estradina  exclaimed 
in  her  brutally  frank  fashion:  "My  dear,  it's 
what  I  always  say  when  people  talk  to  me 
about  fast  Americans:  you're  the  only  inno 
cent  women  left  in  the  world.  ..."  This  is 
far  from  being  a  compliment.  No,  Undine  is 
voluble,  vulgar,  and  "catty,"  but  she  isn't 
wicked.  It  takes  brains  to  be  wicked  in  the 
grand  manner.  She  is  only  disagreeable  and 
fashionable;  and  she  is  as  impersonal  and 
monotonous  as  a  self-playing  pianoforte. 


328 


BOOKS   BY   JAMES   HUNEKER 


What  Maeterlinck  wrote: 

Maurice  Maeterlinck  wrote  thus  of  James  Huneker: 
"Do  you  know  that  'Iconoclasts'  is  the  only  book  of 
high  and  universal  critical  worth  that  we  have  had  for 
years — to  be  precise,  since  Georg  Brandes.  It  is  at 
once  strong  and  fine,  supple  and  firm,  indulgent  and 
sure." 

The  Evening  Post  of  June  10,  1915,  wrote  of  Mr. 
Huneker's  "The  New  Cosmopolis": 

"The  region  of  Bohemia,  Mr.  James  Huneker  found 
long  ago,  is  within  us.  At  twenty,  he  says,  he  discov 
ered  that  there  is  no  such  enchanted  spot  as  the  Latin 
Quarter,  but  that  every  generation  sets  back  the  myth 
ical  land  into  the  golden  age  of  the  Commune,  or  of 
1848,  or  the  days  of  'Hernani.'  It  is  the  same  with 
New  York's  East  Side,  'the  fabulous  East  Side,'  as 
Mr.  Huneker  calls  it  in  his  collection  of  international 
urban  studies,  'The  New  Cosmopolis.'  If  one  judged 
externals  by  grime,  by  poverty,  by  sanded  back-rooms, 
with  long-haired  visionaries  assailing  the  social  order, 
then  the  East  Side  of  the  early  eighties  has  gone  down 
before  the  mad  rush  of  settlement  workers,  impertinent 
reformers,  sociological  cranks,  self-advertising  politi 
cians,  billionaire  socialists,  and  the  reporters.  To-day 
the  sentimental  traveller  'feels  a  heart-pang  to  see  the 
order,  the  cleanliness,  the  wide  streets,  the  playgrounds, 
the  big  boulevards,  the  absence  of  indigence  that  have 
spoiled  the  most  interesting  part  of  New  York  City.' 
But  apparently  this  is  only  a  first  impression;  for  Mr. 
Huneker  had  no  trouble  in  discovering  in  one  caf6  a 
patriarchal  figure  quite  of  the  type  beloved  of  the 
local-color  hunters  of  twenty  years  ago,  a  prophet, 
though  speaking  a  modern  language  and  concerned  with 
things  of  the  day.  So  that  we  owe  to  Mr.  Huneker  the 
discovery  of  a  notable  truth,  namely,  that  Bohemia  is  not 
only  a  creation  of  the  sentimental  memory,  but,  being 
psychological,  may  be  located  in  clean  and  prosperous 
quarters.  The  tendency  has  always  been  to  place  it 
in  a  golden  age,  but  a  tattered  and  unswept  age.  Bo 
hemia  is  now  shown  to  exist  amidst  model  tenements 
and  sanitary  drinking-cups." 


BOOKS   BY  JAMES   HUNEKER 

IVORY  APES  AND 
PEACOCKS 

WITH  FRONTISPIECE  PORTRAIT  OF  DOSTOIEVSKY 

i2mo.    $1.50  net 


NEW  COSMOPOLIS 

i2mo.    $1.50  net 

THE 
PATHOS  of  DISTANCE 

A  Book  of  a  Thousand  and  One  Moments 
i2mo.    $2.00  net 


PROMENADES  of  an 
IMPRESSIONIST 

izmo.    $1.50  net 

"We  like  best  such  sober  essays  as  those  which  analyze  for  us  the 
technical^  contributions  of  C6zanne  and  Rodin.  Here  Mr.  Huneker 
is  a  real  interpreter,  and  here  his  long  experience  of  men  and  ways 
in  art  counts  for  much.  Charming,  in  the  lighter  vein,  are  such 
appreciations  as  the  Monticelli,  and  Chardin." — FRANK  JEWETT 
MATHER,  JR.,  in  New  York  Nation  and  Evening  Post. 


EGOISTS 

A  Book  of  Supermen 

STENDHAL,  BAUDELAIRE,  FLAUBERT,  ANATOLE 

FRANCE,  HUYSMANS,  BARRES,  HELLO, 

BLAKE,  NIETZSCHE,  IBSEN, 

AND  MAX  STIRNER 
With  Portrait  and  Facsimile  Reproductions 

i2mo.    $1.50  net 


BOOKS   BY  JAMES   HUNEKER 

ICONOCLASTS: 

A  Book  of  Dramatists 

i2mo.    $1.50  net 

CONTENTS:  Henrik  Ibsen — August  Strindberg — Henry  Becque — 
Gerhart  Hauptmann — Paul  Hervieu — The  Quintessence  of 
Shaw — Maxim  Gorky's  Nachtasyl — Hermann  Sudermann — 
Princess  Mathilde's  Play — -Duse  and  D'Annunzio — Villiers  de 
1'Isle  Adam — Maurice  Maeterlinck. 

"His  style  is  a  little  jerky,  but  it  is  one  of  those  rare  styles  in  which 
we  are  led  to  expect  some  significance,  if  not  wit,  in  every  sentence." 
— G.  K.  CHESTERTON,  in  London  Daily  News. 


OVERTONES: 

A  Book  of  Temperaments 

WITH  FRONTISPIECE  PORTRAIT  OF 
RICHARD  STRAUSS 

i2mo.    $1.50  net 

"In  some  respects  Mr.  Huneker  must  be  reckoned  the  most 
brilliant  of  all  living  writers  on  matters  musical." 

— Academy,  London. 


MEZZOTINTS  IN 
MODERN  MUSIC 

BRAHMS,  TSCHAIKOWSKY,  CHOPIN. 

RICHARD  STRAUSS,  LISZT, 

AND  WAGNER 

i2mo.    $1.50  net 

"Mr.  Huneker  is,  in  the  best  sense,  a  critic;  he  listens  to  the 
music  and  gives  you  his  impressions  as  rapidly  and  in  as  few  words 
as  possible;  or  he  sketches  the  composers  in  fine,  broad,  sweeping 
strokes  with  a  magnificent  disregard  for  unimportant  details.  .  .  . 
A  distinctly  original  and  very  valuable  contribution  to  the  world's 
tiny  musical  literature." 

— J.  F.  RUNCMAN,  in  London  Saturday  Review. 


BOOKS   BY  JAMES   HUNEKER 


FRANZ  LISZT 

WITH  NUMEROUS  ILLUSTRATIONS 

i2mo.     $2.00  net 


CHOPIN: 

The  Man  and  His  Music 

WITH  ETCHED  PORTRAIT 

1 2 mo.    $2.00  net 


VISIONARIES 

I2mo.    $1.50  net 

CONTENTS:  A  Master  of  Cobwebs — The  Eighth  Deadly  Sin — The 
Purse  of  Aholibah — Rebels  of  the  Moon — The  Spiral  Road — 
A  Mock  Sun— Antichrist— The  Eternal  Duel— The  Enchanted 
Yodler— The  Third  Kingdom— The  Haunted  Harpsichord— 
The  Tragic  Wall — A  Sentimental  Rebellion — Hall  of  the  Miss 
ing  Footsteps — The  Cursory  Light — An  Iron  Fan — The  Woman 
Who  Loved  Chopin— The  Tune  of  Time— Nada— Pan. 

"In  'The  Spiral  Road'  and  in  some  of  the  other  stories  both  fan 
tasy  and  narrative  may  be  compared  with  Hawthorne  in  his  most 
unearthly  moods.  The  younger  man  has  read  his  Nietzsche  and  has 
cast  off  his  heritage  of  simple  morals.  Hawthorne's  Puritanism  finds 
no  echo  in  these  modern  souls,  all  sceptical,  wavering  and  unblessed. 
But  Hawthorne's  splendor  of  vision  and  his  power  of  sympathy  with 
a  tormented  mind  do  live  again  in  the  best  of  Mr.  Huneker's  stories." 
— London  Academy  (Feb.  3,  igo6). 


MELOMANIACS 

i2mo.    $1.50  net 

"It  would  be  difficult  to  sum  up  'Melomaniacs'  in  a  phrase. 
Never  did  a  book,  in  my  opinion  at  any  rate,  exhibit  greater  con 
trasts,  not,  perhaps,  of  strength  and  weakness,  but  of  clearness  and 
obscurity." — HAROLD  E.  GORST,  in  London  Saturday  Review. 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS,  NEW  YORK 


DATE  DUE 


MTERUBf 

[MY  LOAJIS 

JUN  1  7  . 

9B 

net  Juiv 

4   jags 

JW 

088 

^M 

AN    4]9 

38 

GAYLORD 

PUNTED  IN  U.S.A. 

UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


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